Mothers and Sons

(Hardback)

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A mother and son, estranged but yearning for reunion, reckon at last with the secret that has kept them apart for decades in this highly anticipated novel by one of the most talented American writers of his generation. At forty, Peter, an asylum lawyer in New York City, is overworked and isolated. He spends his days immersed in the struggles of immigrants only to return to an empty apartment and occasional hook-ups with a man who wants more than Peter can give. But when the asylum case of a young gay man pierces Peter's numbness, the event that he has avoided for twenty years returns to haunt him. Ann, his mother, who runs a women's retreat centre she founded after leaving his father, is wounded by the estrangement from Peter but cherishes the world she has built. She long ago banished from her mind 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 forever, he and his mother must confront the secret that tore them apart. With unsurpassed emotional depth, Mothers and Sons reveals all that is lost by looking away from the past and the love that might be restored by facing it. In his spellbinding new novel, Adam Haslett demonstrates yet again his mastery of "a rich assortment of literary gifts" (New York Times).

Reviews

Mothers and Sons is both moving and deeply compelling, a story about the search for our own humanity, and the lengths we will go to maintain it. A new book by Adam Haslett is always cause for celebration. He is one of our very best writers -- Ann Patchett
Mothers and Sons is like sonar in a lake, pinging out everything submerged, the hidden stories, shames and joys. Theres nothing like it. Hasletts characters feel so real, their choices so hard, their lives so true. He is everything you want in a writer

Author Bio

Adam Haslett is the author of the short-story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here, a New York Times bestseller shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and the US National Book Award, and the novel Union Atlantic, winner of the Lambda Literary Award. Hamish Hamilton published his latest novel, Imagine Me Gone. His books have been translated into eighteen languages and his writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, the Financial Times, and Der Spiegel, among others. He lives in New York.