Many thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for gifting me a digital ARC of the latest by Adam Haslett. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 4 stars!
Peter is an asylum lawyer in New York City, overworked and isolated. He spends his days immersed in the struggles of his clients only to return to an empty apartment and occasional hook-ups. 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. Peter is mostly estranged from his mother, Ann, who runs a women's retreat center she founded after leaving his father. The secret that both mother and son share is the one that they can't talk about and has torn them apart.
The story plays out in the present, alternating between Peter and Ann, as well as gradually revealing the past incident that has caused their rift. It's interesting to see how these family dynamics played out - and there were a lot of issues in this family. Even though Ann spent her life listening to people's problems, she often failed at that in her own life. This looks at how traumatic events carry over in our lives, especially when they are hidden. There were a lot of heartbreaking immigration stories, highlighting this issue, I did feel that they tended to slow the book down, especially in the beginning, but the last part of the book tied everything together perfectly and kept me glued.
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