Awards
2013 Women's Prize for Fiction Winner
Staff Pick
Harry Silver commits a sin that will forever change his life, and no amount of foresight could have prepared him for what follows. Harry's brother, George, is suddenly out of the picture, and Harry is left with George's house, his two children, his pets, and all of George's many problems. Harry soon finds himself sucked into Internet "dating," trouble at work, a medical crisis, and a looming divorce. Yet, on this slippery slope, Harry somehow manages to latch onto the one thing that will give his new life meaning: his niece and nephew.
As much as you want to dislike Harry — and believe me, you do — he grows in such a way that it's impossible to do so. Homes showcases her brilliant ability to crawl inside a character and share every tiny nuance and quirk. Harry's long climb out of the morass he's created, into redemption, is lovely to watch. Homes throws in a hefty dose of heart and a ton of absurdist humor, along with her slightly skewed commentary on modern life, making May We Be Forgiven an odd mix of hilarity and poignant sweetness. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
A darkly comic novel of twenty-first-century domestic life and the possibility of personal transformation Harold Silver has spent a lifetime watching his younger brother, George, a taller, smarter, and more successful high-flying TV executive, acquire a covetable wife, two kids, and a beautiful home in the suburbs of New York City. But Harry, a historian and Nixon scholar, also knows George has a murderous temper, and when George loses control the result is an act of violence so shocking that both brothers are hurled into entirely new lives in which they both must seek absolution.
Harry finds himself suddenly playing parent to his brother’s two adolescent children, tumbling down the rabbit hole of Internet sex, dealing with aging parents who move through time like travelers on a fantastic voyage. As Harry builds a twenty-first-century family created by choice rather than biology, we become all the more aware of the ways in which our history, both personal and political, can become our destiny and either compel us to repeat our errors or be the catalyst for change.
May We Be Forgiven is an unnerving, funny tale of unexpected intimacies and of how one deeply fractured family might begin to put itself back together.
Review
"This novel starts at maximum force — and then it really gets going. I can't remember when I last read a novel of such narrative intensity; an unflinching account of a catastrophic, violent, black-comic, transformative year in the history of one broken American family. Flat-out amazing." Salman Rushdie
Review
"I started this book in the A.M., finished in the P.M., and couldn’t sleep all night. Ms. Homes just gets better and better." Gary Shteyngart
Review
"What if whoever wrote the story of Job had a sense of humor? Nixon is pondered. One character donates her organs. Another tries to grow a heart. A seductive minefield of a novel from A.M. Homes." John Sayles
Review
"I started reading A.M. Homes twenty years ago. Wild and funny, questioning and true, she is a writer to go traveling with on the journey called life." Jeanette Winterson
Synopsis
A darkly comic novel of twenty-first-century domestic life and the possibility of personal transformation.
Harold Silver has spent a lifetime watching his younger brother, George, a taller, smarter, and more successful high-flying TV executive, acquire a covetable wife, two kids, and a beautiful home in the suburbs of New York City. But Harry, a historian and Nixon scholar, also knows George has a murderous temper, and when George loses control the result is an act of violence so shocking that both brothers are hurled into entirely new lives in which they both must seek absolution.
Harry finds himself suddenly playing parent to his brother’s two adolescent children, tumbling down the rabbit hole of Internet sex, dealing with aging parents who move through time like travelers on a fantastic voyage. As Harry builds a twenty-first-century family created by choice rather than biology, we become all the more aware of the ways in which our history, both personal and political, can become our destiny and either compel us to repeat our errors or be the catalyst for change.
May We Be Forgiven is an unnerving, funny tale of unexpected intimacies and of how one deeply fractured family might begin to put itself back together.
Synopsis
The acclaimed writer A. M. Homes was given up for adoption before she was born. Her biological mother was a twenty-two-year-old single woman who was having an affair with a much older married man with a family of his own.
The Mistress's Daughter is the ruthlessly honest account of what happened when, thirty years later, her birth parents came looking for her. Homes relates how they initially made contact and what happened afterwards, and digs through the family history of both sets of her parents in a twenty-first-century electronic search for self. Daring, heartbreaking, and startlingly funny, Homes's memoir is a brave and profoundly moving consideration of identity and family.
Synopsis
Since her debut in 1989, A. M. Homes has been among the boldest and most original voices of her generation, acclaimed for the psychological accuracy and unnerving emotional intensity of her storytelling. Her ability to explore how extraordinary the ordinary can be is at the heart of her touching and funny new novel, her first in six years.
This Book Will Save Your Life is a vivid, uplifting, and revealing story about compassion, transformation, and what can happen if you are willing to lose yourself and open up to the world around you.
Synopsis
A big American story with big American themes” (Elle) from the author of the New York Timesbestselling memoir The Mistresss Daughter In this vivid, transfixing new novel, A. M. Homes presents a darkly comic look at twenty-first-century domestic life and the possibility of personal transformation. Harold Silver has spent a lifetime watching his more successful younger brother, George, acquire a covetable wife, two kids, and a beautiful home in the suburbs of New York City. When Georges murderous temper results in a shocking act of violence, both men are hurled into entirely new lives. May We Be Forgiven digs deeply into the near biblical intensity of fraternal relationships, our need to make sense of things, and our craving for connection. It is an unnerving tale of unexpected intimacies and of how one deeply fractured family might begin to put itself back together.
About the Author
A. M. Homes is the author of five novels, most recently This Book Will Save Your Life; two collections of stories; and the memoir The Mistresss Daughter. Her fiction and essays have been published in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Harpers, Granta, and One Story. She lives in New York City.