by A.M. Homes
Viking/Granta
Bron Sibree
This is a satire on steroids. A biting examination of 21st-century American suburban life that oscillates between acerbity and poignancy, between the ridiculous, the laugh-aloud funny and the plainly absurd, with an intensity that catches at your throat.
By the time you've read the first paragraph you'll understand just why it is A.M. Homes is famous for her brave, darkly original, often controversial, beyond-funny fiction, for the kind of novels that enthral, terrify and mesmerise from the get-go.
May We Be Forgiven, her sixth novel and her first in six years, begins with an unnamed narrator proffering his recipe for disaster. He cites last year's Thanksgiving as its warning signal, when, carrying plates back and forth from the kitchen at "their" house - "the edges of my fingers dipping into unnameable goo" - he spies his brother, George, picking turkey from his teeth and talking about himself. "With every trip back and forth from the dining room to the kitchen, I hated him more," says our narrator, recalling the occasion with mordant and cinematic precision.