Adam Haslett's new novel explores the complex relationship between a workaholic immigration lawyer and his mother, a spiritual retreat leader. Both grapple with their past traumas and the social upheaval of the present, leading to a long-awaited confrontation.
Peter Fischer buries his personal demons in work, work and more work. An immigration lawyer in Manhattan, his job is one long emergency: He advocates for asylees seeking legal standing and safe harbor in America. Success means a new and far more secure life. Failure means deportation.
Peter’s mother, Ann, has taken on another bottomless vocation, though in more serene surroundings: She runs a spiritual retreat in Vermont aimed at helping women — discouraged, alienated or traumatized — achieve a sense of community and self-worth. She has a gift for getting others to connect with their pain, even as she buries her own. Both are deeply invested in a life of service. Both share a secret. And for both mother and son, a reckoning is coming. In “Mothers and Sons,” acclaimed novelist Adam Haslett tells the story of this pair with acute empathy and insight. The author of three previous works of fiction, two of them Pulitzer Prize finalists, (2016’s “Imagine Me Gone” and 2002’s story collection “You Are Not a Stranger Here”), 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. For Peter, the demon that drives his workaholism lies in his past: As a teenager, he wrestled with submerged desires and eventually realized he was gay. Then, in the middle of his father’s and mother’s split over Ann’s love for another woman, Peter’s crush on the enchanting and charismatic Jared went catastrophically bad. Ann’s decision to leave her husband both fractured the family and ended her vocation as an Episcopal priest. Peter’s job blocks his memories and serves as an excuse both to avoid entangling relationships and to turn down Ann’s invitations to meet. Every case demands a cram course in the politics of his client’s country of origin and the abuse that led him or her to flee
Literary Fiction Family Drama FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIPS TRAUMA SECRETS SOCIAL TURMOIL RECKONING
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