FICTION

Mothers and Sons

by Adam Haslett
Little, Brown. Jan. 2025. 336p. ISBN 9780316574716. $29. F
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Peter Fischer is an immigration lawyer whose days are spent in client interviews, court appearances, and deportation hearings. His workaholic life leaves little room for romance, other than occasional hookups with forgettable men. Meanwhile, his mother, Ann, has decamped with her partner Clare to rural Vermont, where they run a retreat for women seeking healing or self-awareness. Peter and Ann lead parallel lives, but their long estrangement ends when Peter’s ordered existence is upset by a new client, a young Albanian seeking refuge in the United States after being tortured and humiliated for being gay. For Peter, this asylum case awakens painful memories of his first crush on a handsome high school friend. His subsequent response forces mother and son to finally confront the past.
VERDICT There is no shortage of pathos in the heartbreaking stories of Peter’s clients or the accounts of abuse experienced by Ann’s retreat guests. But Haslett’s (Imagine Me Gone) melancholy novel finds some resolution and ends on an uplifting note for its asylum seekers, troubled women, mother, and son.
Reviewed by Barbara Love , Dec 01, 2024
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