Description

A mother and son, estranged for many years, reckon at last with the secret that has kept them apart in this highly anticipated novel by one of the most talented American writers of his generation

Peter, an asylum lawyer in New York City, is overworked and isolated, spending his days immersed in the struggles of immigrants only to return to an empty apartment and occasional detached hook-ups. But when the asylum case of a young gay man pierces Peter’s numbness, the catastrophic event that he has avoided facing for twenty years returns to haunt him.

Ann, his mother, who runs a women’s retreat she founded after leaving his father, is hurt by her estrangement from Peter but cherishes the world she has built. She long ago put behind her the decision that divided her from her son. But as Peter’s case plunges him further into the fraught memory of his first love and the night of violence that changed his life, he and his mother must confront the secret that tore them apart.

‘Subtle, symphonic and satisfying’ Financial Times

‘An epic family saga that packs an extraordinary emotional punch . . . this book is his best yet’ Observer

Publisher Review

A complex portrait of parallel lives on a par with the great Russian novels . . . incandescently smart and elegant . . . This is a story that feels as deep and real as life itself – a beautiful portrait of a mother and son * Guardian * The novel I’ve looked forward to most this coming year: Adam Haslett’s Mothers and Sons . . . I’ve loved his writing since Union Atlantic and this book is his best yet . . . The echoes of the Russian greats in the title aren’t misplaced – this is an epic family saga that packs an extraordinary emotional punch * Observer, ‘Fiction to look out for in 2025’ * A rising American superstar . . . Mothers and Sons packs a powerful punch which will secure [Haslett’s] reputation . . . What Haslett does especially well is excavate the emotional inner lives of his characters . . . The final third of the book has the pace and revelation of a thriller. Ann may believe that “history is a mess” but Haslett shows quite brilliantly how the past can deliver blows decades on, and that sometimes a step backwards is what it takes to be properly in the present * Big Issue * Subtle, symphonic and satisfying . . . the secrets are deep and rich . . . Haslett wears his novelists skills lightly, never overwhelming the reader with a forceful style, but dropping in distinctive observations nonetheless * Financial Times * Riveting . . . Unfurling across multiple timelines with impressive, confident fluidity, Mothers and Sons is a powerful study of the impossibility of trying to hold back the tides of familial hurt and trauma. When the levee finally breaks, the outcome is both heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful * Vogue * Mothers and Sons is Haslett’s best novel . . . he achieves new levels of moral depth and narrative push * New York Times Book Review * One of the most psychologically astute fiction writers in America . . . Mothers and Sons could not be more timely . . .There’s a strange tension in Haslett’s work between urgency and introspection. Try as you might, you cannot rush this novel . . . His prose lies on the page with the intensity of a loosely coiled copperhead; you don’t even see the camouflaged danger until it strikes. He’s a master of incident and particularly of the ordinary line that’s transformed by his pacing and placement into something altogether devastating * Washington Post * There’s no better writer at chronicling the highs and lows of familial love. In Mothers and Sons, Haslett shows a family both torn by past trauma and battered by the social turmoil of the present . . . The chronicle of this complex mother and son pair satisfies one of the best reasons to read fiction: to understand others and their impossible burdens, to mourn when they stumble and celebrate when they survive * Los Angeles Times * This beautifully written novel about the power of stories to redeem the past and reclaim the future is itself a tapestry of such narratives * O, The Oprah Magazine * Excellent . . . Haslett sets up this story with a delicacy that will not surprise anyone who read his beautiful 2016 novel, Imagine Me Gone, which featured a fretful, caretaking mother and her manic-depressive son. He is particularly good at depicting the ways-often admirable, sometimes blinding-that both Ann and Peter have been shaped by their work * Wall Street Journal *