There’s a quiet weight to this novel that sneaks up on you. Mothers and Sons is a slow, emotionally precise look at the distance—and sometimes silence—that can stretch between people who are supposed to be close. Peter, a gay immigration lawyer in New York, and his estranged mother, Ann, are each navigating their own grief, guilt, and sense of purpose, mostly apart, and occasionally together.

Haslett doesn’t rush the story. The writing is restrained but thoughtful, and the characters are written with care, even when they’re hard to like. I found Peter’s work with asylum seekers to be some of the most powerful parts of the book—it gave a real sense of urgency and burnout, and it added depth to a character who might have otherwise felt emotionally closed off. The sections with his mother, though less vivid for me, still added texture to the book’s central theme: what we inherit from family, and what we choose to keep or let go.

The pacing is slow, and I imagine it won’t be for everyone. But if you like character-driven stories that deal in internal conflict, subtle moments, and long-simmering tension, this one sticks with you.

Mothers and Sons is a quietly devastating exploration of love, inheritance, and the emotional fault lines that run through families. Adam Haslett writes with unflinching tenderness and psychological acuity, illuminating the spaces between intimacy and isolation. It's a portrait of connection that is yearned for, resisted, and, sometimes, gracefully surrendered to.

Wow, wow, wow. This one will make you FEEL.

Mother and Sons by Adam Haslett explores the complicated bonds that tie us together, and it tackles the complexities of familial relationships with incredible nuance and depth. From the very beginning, you know this book is going to pack a punch, as we get an inside glimpse into the incredibly difficult world of immigration and the desire to get a chance at building a better life. Throughout the book, Haslett deftly intertwines different perspectives demonstrating how both mothers and sons navigate their own struggles and dreams. The characters are all beautifully realized and incredibly human. This is a must-read for fans of literary fiction!

Such quiet writing for emotional and powerful subject matter. Everything seems restrained but also just ready to burst. I liked the build-up in this one, the reveal of the true tension between mother and son.

This book was astounding. Gorgeous, smart, kind, trusting of the reader. I need more people to pay attention to it!

This is another one of those situations where the book is perfectly adequate, the writing is above average, the story is engaging enough and completely readable, there’s not much overtly wrong with the book other than it being & feeling really derivative. The characters were complex and likable & the storyline was compelling enough to keep me from being bored. I was invested in the character’s lives and was never bored while I was reading this. But even with all those positives, my reading experience was still very mid just bc it feels very much like a book I’ve read many times over. It was still moving, & it managed to get a good grip on my heart but it’s fatal flaw was that it lacked anything that makes it stand out from all the other books with similar storylines and themes. There are 1 million books out there about family history, dysfunction and healing, this one is a rather decent one, but it’s not the very best of them, but still all in all it was a pleasant reading experience and I don’t feel that I wasted my time in reading it.

Adam Haslett's Mothers and Sons tells the story of Peter and his mother. Peter is an immigration lawyer and the novel confronts trauma and how long lasting the impacts can be. I enjoyed Peter's story but was especially interested in the background of his work in immigration law.

Haslett is a great story teller who involves you with his characters and their inner lives.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy fo Mothers and Sons in exchange for an honest review. Mothers and Sons is available now.

Mothers and Sons is a masterful, emotionally incisive collection that showcases Adam Haslett’s rare ability to cut straight to the heart of human connection—and disconnection. With remarkable precision and empathy, Haslett explores the fragile threads that tie families together, particularly the complicated dynamics between mothers and sons. Each story is a quiet storm, offering glimpses into lives marked by longing, misunderstanding, mental illness, and unspoken love. The emotional clarity is striking, and even the subtlest moments carry enormous weight.

What sets Haslett apart is his restraint. He doesn’t lean on dramatic twists or overwrought sentiment; instead, he trusts the reader to sit with discomfort and ambiguity. His prose is elegant, pared down, and deeply observant, allowing character interiority to bloom in unexpected ways. The collection spans different voices and circumstances, but there’s a shared emotional intelligence throughout—an understanding of the quiet ache that often defines our most intimate relationships.

Some stories resonate more powerfully than others, and a few may feel understated to the point of slipping past without leaving as strong a mark. But that ebb and flow feels natural in a collection like this, and it ultimately underscores the book’s quiet brilliance. Mothers and Sons is an unassuming but deeply affecting work—one that lingers not because it shouts, but because it whispers truths we often try to ignore.

This was way too slow for me. I did not care for the mother or the son. The relationship was estranged yes, but the arguments and conflict just did not appeal to me at all.

This novel follows Peter, a gay lawyer representing asylum seekers, and his complex relationship with his estranged lesbian mother. It powerfully explores themes of family, acceptance, and the deep bond between mothers and their gay sons, delivering a compelling and thought-provoking story that lingers long after reading.

Mothers and Sons was a not-altogether-unpleasant exploration of family, trauma, and the lasting effects of past wounds. Haslett's blunt style captured the emotional intensity of the characters’ inner struggles, but you definitely have to brace yourself while reading. I also found the sections about Peter's immigration work dry and perhaps unnecessary. While these moments were thematically relevant, they sometimes felt like a detour from the more personal aspects of the story.

The character arcs of Peter and Ann develop separately, and I did appreciate the nuance in their growth, though at times, their relationship shifts felt a bit forced or disconnected. The quieter moments in Haslett's prose really shone, especially when diving into the characters' personal grief and regrets. Overall, I found this book to be a solid, though imperfect read. It offered a lot of insight into family dynamics and unresolved trauma, but its pacing and structure didn’t fully land for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this Advanced Readers Copy of Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett!

Mothers and Sons was an excellent read. I loved the writing and it was propulsive. Great character study. I would read more from this author.

This is definitely a slow burn. Told from alternating points of view from Peter and his mother, watching Peter's downward spiral was heartbreaking because the reader is living it.
The novel is also a social commentary on our broken immigration system and those who get trapped in the paperwork and court system.
Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing me with an advance e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. Look for it now in your local and online bookstores and libraries.

I found this story to be a bit disjointed and couldn’t get completely engrossed in this one. The description was a bit misleading.

It turned around by the end, but I wanted it to be more.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett.

There was a lot to appreciate about this book. I especially liked getting a glimpse into what the life of an immigration attorney would look like. Exhausting, hopeless, numbing. To hear tragic stories, day in and out. And for the protagonist to then go and fill the numbness with occasional, casual romantic encounters, there was definitely a feeling of bleakness to be felt for main character.

What I couldn't really get into was his relationship with his mother, or how they lost each other in the first place. It almost felt more an issue of complacency and being too busy and overwhelmed to reach out. I could never really get into his mom's alternative living situation, it seemed very commune/polyamorous-like, and something about it felt culty and turned me off.

In short, I appreciated the idea, I just couldn't get into the execution.

After reading the first chapter of this novel, I couldn’t understand how anyone chose to read on. There wasn’t anything intriguing about it. It was bland; the prologue captured my interest, but the next section of words took it away. It was bland.

I was intrigued by the premise of this book but unfortunately I was expecting one thing from the synopsis and title and the story delivered something totally different.

Mothers and Sons promised to be a story about a gay immigration lawyer unable to emotionally connect with his lover who is still troubled by the loss of his first love, who is estranged from his mother, a gay female minister who runs a progressive religious retreat in Vermont.

I thought it was going to be a moving literary story full of interiority about a man representing a sexual orientation case as he reconciles with his mother.

Instead they seemed to operate two completely separate orbits as they were uninteresting, self-absorbed workaholics who each found their only fulfillment in their jobs to the detriment of their relationships, with a reconciliation scene at the end. The first half of the book was very slow and went into a mundane deep dive on the day to day practice of being a lawyer (though the duties described were more paralegal work - lawyers don't format footnotes!) and as I am a legal assistant for a day job, I quickly became bored without any emotional dimension. It was interesting to see the day to day life of an immigration lawyer, but it was portrayed in such a sterile way that I felt like I was at work. Accurate, sure, but not engaging, unless you don't know the legal profession at all and think the procedural nitty gritty is glamorous.

Mother and son barely reflected on their relationship and I felt like I didn't care to know their history after awhile because I developed such a strong dislike to each of them. It was well-written with very blunt prose; I just was not the right reader for this book at all. It was like a series of bare-bones portraits about unlikable and dysfunctional mothers and sons without much reflection or deeper themes or transformation.

I then skimmed the last half of the book because I got so bored with the story.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Peter's an asylum lawyer in NYC and his life is all wrapped up in his job. We quickly learn that he's gay, has very few relationships outside of work, and is estranged from his mother -- all elements to make for an interesting novel on its own. A new client, a young man from Albania, brings Peter back to his youth and a life altering event he's buried, and his story becomes even more interesting.
While I immediately was immersed in Peter's stories of his clients trying to escape the horrors of their pasts, it takes a while for his own story to unfold. There were two elements of this novel that were especially unique. There are many novels about lawyers, but immigration law isn't typically the specialty that's featured. This is an especially timely focus and the clients' stories are interesting, and also disturbing in many cases. There are also lots of novels about the mother/daughter relationship but not as many about mothers and sons. Mr. Haslett's writing is beautiful and I especially liked his hauntingly written introduction.
Thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for the opportunity to read Mothers and Sons. I received a complimentary copy of this book and opinions expressed are completely my own.