May We Be Forgiven

Included in the BEST OF GRANTA launch list for 2023: an iconic satire of contemporary America and WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2013, in which a momentary loss of control catapults two vying brothers into new lives, wherein loyalties are tested and families crumble.

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

'Reads like a brilliant miniseries ... has the narrative intensity of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and the emotional punch of Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved.' Observer

Harold Silver has spent a lifetime watching his taller, smarter, and more successful younger brother George acquire a covetable wife, two kids, and a beautiful home in New York City. But Harry also knows his brother has a murderous temper. 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.

Suddenly Harry finds himself playing parent to his brother's two adolescent children, tumbling down a rabbit hole of online sex, and dealing with aging parents who move through life like travellers on a fantastic voyage. And he is forced to confront the ways in which our histories can either compel us to repeat our mistakes - or become the catalyst for change.

May We Be Forgiven is a darkly funny tale exploring how one deeply fractured family might begin to put itself back together.

'An unflinching account of a catastrophic, violent, black-comic, transformative year in the history of one broken American family. Flat-out amazing' Salman Rushdie