The early part of the year is often a bit of a sleepy time for new fiction.
Publishers expect readers to be sated by the rush of book buying associated with the holidays. Blockbuster titles are usually slated for summer; prestige efforts by literary lights hit stores in the fall.
But a major release by a writer who doesn’t give us new novels all that often has slipped into stores this month and you do not want to miss it.
The author is Adam Haslett and the book is “Mothers and Sons” It’s Haslett’s first book since 2016’s Pulitzer Prize finalist “Imagine Me Gone,” a tour de force of family entanglements told through the perspectives of five different characters, each of which manages to feel fully inhabited on the page.
“Mothers and Sons” has a smaller cast but is no less psychologically acute in its explorations of how we both love and harm those who are closest to us, sometimes simultaneously.
The main son of the story is Peter, working as a lawyer in New York, circa 2011, representing asylum seekers as they pursue protection from persecution in their home countries. Peter has turned 40 and while his work is meaningful, he feels increasingly distanced from it, as he does from the somewhat younger man who is a frequent intimate partner, without the two of them actually being in a relationship. Peter finds himself further unsettled by the arrival of Vasel, a young man trying to remain in the U.S., rather than be returned to his home country of Albania where he risks death for being gay.
The main mother of the story is Peter’s mom, Ann, a pastor who left Peter’s father for a woman (Clare), and the family home for a rural retreat established to help and empower women. Over its 20 or so years of existence, the retreat has grown into a vibrant place, fulfilling Ann’s vision, but this period has also been one largely of alienation between Ann and Peter. Early on in the book we understand that there was an incident in Peter’s young adulthood that has become a suppressed, but still open wound between them.
The novel trades between these two characters’ perspectives as we are given an intimate look at how they’re attempting to navigate both life’s regular and irregular challenges. Ann is experiencing restlessness over her relationship to Clare, her partner in life and the retreat, as well as inner turbulence over her absented son. Peter, increasingly obsessed with Vasel’s situation, even as Vasel appears only periodically interested in Peter’s help, begins to truly unravel, failing in basic aspects of his job.
Meanwhile, the past incident is being unspooled and we begin to better understand the depth and nature of the cleaving of mother and son.
While Ann and Peter are central to the narrative, Haslett provides us other stories of mothers and sons. We learn of Vasel’s mother who would do anything to make sure her son could flee to America and at least temporary safety. Susan, the mother of Peter’s high school friend Jared becomes important to Peter in both the past and the present. Together, these stories show how richly complicated relationships can be.
The deep connection to the characters is, for me, the chief pleasure of “Mothers and Sons,” but Haslett’s ingenious structure of braiding together different times and different perspectives also creates some real page-turning momentum around the plot that had me on edge, worried for these people I’d come to know.
Adam Haslett can take as long as he needs to write his novels when they’re this good.
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz” by Erik Larson
2. “The Women” by Kristin Hannah
3. “Wolf Hall” by Hilary Mantel
4. “The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty” by Sebastian Barry
5. “Lincoln” by Gore Vidal
— Mary R., Chicago
Here’s some historical fiction that fits in with some of what Mary’s been reading lately, “Henry and Clara” by Thomas Mallon.
1. “I Hope This Finds You Well” by Natalie Sue
2. “Whale Fall” by Elizabeth O’Connor
3. “Everything Matters!” by Ron Currie Jr.
4. “A Town Like Alice” by Nevil Shute
5. “Time of the Child” by Niall Williams
— John S., Chicago
I see a trend toward stories of decent people trying to make decent lives for themselves. I feel like “Early Morning Riser” by Katherine Heiny is a good fit here.
1. “Amazing Grapes” by Jules Feiffer
2. “Starless” by Jacqueline Carey
3. “The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy” by Michael Lewis
4. “Everybody Knows” by Jordan Harper
5. “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang
— Mike G., Springfield
For Mike a crime novel that’s more than just a crime novel, “Hard Girls” by J. Robert Lennon.
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.