My first read from Adam Haslett, Mothers and Sons was a good book but it was a LOT. There are a lot of characters to keep track of and I personally struggled to keep them all straight. I couldn't find myself relating to any of the characters and the overall pacing of the novel was off. I don't doubt that many will enjoy this book but for me it fell in the middle of the road. I would still consider future works from Haslett.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little Brown Company for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. Mothers and Sons is available on January 7, 2025.

Publishing January 7th.

Peter is an immigration attorney in New York City. He's overworked but has such a gift with his clients, spending time with them to learn the specifics about why being granted asylum in the US is critical to them and their families.

Peter and his older sister Liz grew up with their mother Ann, a priest, and their father following her lead on most issues and not complaining. The parents' relationship dwindles after Ann meets Clare at church.

During the time that his parents are splitting, and then reuniting because his father is unwell, Peter is finding his way through a complicated adolescence.

Through interwoven timelines, we learn more about Peter and Ann, the wounds that they each suffered, and how they arrived at their present day estrangement.

I really enjoyed this read, and the reflections on how Peter's work has brought dormant feelings to the surface. There is one critical point in the book that I just couldn't get a good read on, meaning that I can't figure out the emotions behind the actions in the way that it's written. Perhaps this is intentional, but it makes me feel as though I've missed this part of the story.

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I love Haslett's work and I was very excited to hear about a new book of his (they appear years apart).

I was truly disappointed in the first half of the book as it had characters and situations that I found very difficult to relate to and cared little for their individual stories. But the latter half redeems itself and is worth hanging out for. It is likely a great challenge to write about people that are distant and cold. A great challenge indeed in that several of the lead characters in the book fit that description. And the end feels a bit forced as Haslett tries to wrap up his character's life long grievances in a few short chapters.
But there is an emotional payoff and even a 4* Haslett book is better than 90% of what's out there.

Recommended with qualifiers.

I cannot finish this book. It is unappealing to me. I read 25% and I cannot finish it. I do not like the characters and the story line is not for me. Thank you.

Mothers and Sons tells the story of 40-year-old Peter Fischer, an immigration lawyer, and his mother, Ann, an Episcopal priest who runs a spiritual retreat. Anne and Peter have been estranged since Peter was a teenager, and Haslett very slowly reveals details about their sexuality (they are both gay) and the harrowing event that drove mother and son apart.

The author has woven many heartbreaking details about Peter's work with those seeking asylum into the story. Ann has been hurt by the distance from her son but she also enjoys the life she has built after leaving Peter's father. When Peter becomes unusually involved with Vasel Marku, a young gay Albanian man seeking asylum over fears he’ll face homophobic persecution, the estranged mother and son are forced to face their own fears and guilt. Haslett takes the long way around to tell this tale, and while I kept reading to see what had driven mother and son apart, I'm not sure that the slow narrative was the best way to tell their stories. Three and a half stars rounded up.

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on January 7, 2025.

Overall the book was enjoyable. I’m a fan of legal fiction, and complex family telling. However , this book was a little overwhelming as it was very wordy and over descriptive at times which made it hard to get through. There’s so much information and background information to remember for each character. I would say it’s still an interesting read and worth reading if you like legal drama and novels about family, grief, love and sexuality.

Was a thinking book which I figured but wasn't exciting enough for me. Beautiful story and how it was all connected but I just couldn't relate to anyone

I requested and received an eARC of Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett via NetGalley. Haslett is a new-to-me author, but when I saw this listed among the titles of upcoming queer novels I was instantly interested in reading it. Mothers and Sons follows Peter, a forty year old asylum lawyer living in New York City. He is overworked and lonely, returning home from his difficult work to an empty apartment and an occasional hook-up. A particular case, however, stirs something within Peter and forces him to confront the trauma of his own earlier life. He has spent years estranged from his mother, Ann, who runs a women’s retreat that she founded after separating from his father. As the case forces Peter to deal with the emotional turmoil of his past, he must also confront the secret that drove him and his mother apart.

I found the idea of Mothers and Sons to be very compelling. We have these two very great characters in Peter and Ann. Peter, the asylum lawyer, is perhaps a little cynical but still devotes himself to a career in aiding others. Ann’s work at the retreat is done in much the same spirit. So, how do these two become so fractured that years have gone by without them exchanging words? This question is what propelled me through the pages of this novel, but I couldn’t help but linger among the stories of those people Peter encounters in his job. There are so many maudlin, little sprinkles of humanity in this story that create a swelling of emotion as you read that it is difficult not to become invested. I think Haslett does an exceptional job at capturing the pain of this separation between Peter and Ann and the event that caused it in the way it seems to haunt them both. How this pain and guilt manifests in their personal relations is a very interesting thing to take in. Both are such complex characters, with their own virtues and hypocrisies, and I think this nuance really made Mothers and Sons a captivating read.

Vasel, the young man whose case Peter attaches himself to, is an equally compelling character. I think Haslett really succeeds with creating someone who demonstrates both ferocity and vulnerability, however unwilling, with this his character. He has a certain energy that absolutely lit up the page every time he spoke. Perhaps equally engaging is Liz, Peter’s sister who still has a relationship with their mother. Her character, and the charming family Haslett has created for her, brought a certain humor and lightness to the story that aided with some of the heaviness of the narrative. Mothers and Sons is brimming with tension and just when I began to question whether or not it would amount to anything I started the third act which opens with a devastating eruption that put what I had already read into a much clearer perspective. It was very well done. Overall, I found the novel to be very moving with a lot to say about grief, healing, and the importance of listening.

I'm a bit conflicted about this one. MOTHERS AND SONS is beautifully written and the character development is superb. However, this novel feels bloated, and the pacing suffers b/c we spend so much time with stories from Peter's and Ann's jobs. This could have been a much shorter, tighter story, and it would have had more impact that way. Perhaps a novella length would have served the story better. Nonetheless I really enjoyed the writing and the character development.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance e-galley; all opinions in my review are 100% my own.

This book was quite the slow burn for me. Not at all what I was expecting but still enjoyable. Fantastic characters from start to finish. I enjoyed the exploration of mother/child bonding. But it seems we can be totally wrong about other’s needs in life.
Thank you NetGalley, Adam Haslett and Little, Brown and Company for the opportunity to read and review this book.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy this book because it’s not what I usually read, but I absolutely loved it! It reminded me that not all families are close and loving and that’s okay…they don’t have to be. There were times when I felt sorry for Peter, got mad at Peter, and loved Peter. He was a great main character because he was not perfect nor had a perfect life. Ultimately, this book is about loss and things that families decide not to talk about and bury deep. I had a strained relationship with my mother and it was good for me to read about a similar situation from a male point of view. I will definitely recommend this title to my friends and book club members. Thanks to NetGalley for my ARC of this book!

with a blunt style of writing, author Haslett writes a story of identity and family. The grief that weaves through it follows Peter, an asylum lawyer and his mother who runs a women's retreat. Basically unpacking Legal Aid immigration and the clients who try and get asylum by proving they are in danger if they return home. In the way that the clients need support, so too does Peter but from the trauma of his past.

Heartfelt, if not blunt, it feels like it was written very much with an agenda. One that some readers may shy from but definitely one that could be that perfect book club choice because there is so much to unpack.

ps. I think I need to get the debut to this author to see if the style is the same.

Just a word of thanks to netgalley.com, as well as Little, Brown and Company for an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for me my honest opinion of the novel.

Mothers and Sons was an overall interesting read by Adam Haslett. This is my first novel by Haslett - but I had heard of him, so I was interested in reading this novel from him. The novel starts with an intriguing situation - someone named Jared heads off out of the driveway and into the darkness, the house is empty, but “someone” must find his mother in the house to tell about a problem. The “someone” ultimately finds his mother in her study, looking out the window the entire time. And so begins “Mothers and Sons”.

The “someone” ends up being Peter Fischer, an immigration lawyer in New York City. The book goes back and forth between Peter’s life as an immigration lawyer, and his mother Ann, who lives in Vermont and runs a women’s retreat. As the novel continues, we find out both Peter and Ann are gay, as well as the fact that Peter has not seen his mother in quite some time. The stress of Peter’s job ultimately brings him to Vermont and to reconnect with his mother. The book gives us snippets of a young Peter and his budding relationship with Jared. Closer to the end of the novel, we find out what really happened to Jared, and why there has been this fall-out between Peter and his mother.

Overall, I give this 3.5 stars. The novel ended well - I enjoyed reading about the family dynamics between Peter and his mother, and how Jared played a role in their relationship. However, I found the book to be burdened down by the stories related to Peter and Ann’s professions. This seemed to dominate close to 70% of the novel. It seemed, to me, that the book didn’t really get started until the last 30% of the novel. “Mothers and Sons” was a decent novel, but took quite a while to get going.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this upcoming book!

What an amazing and heartfelt story. I knew going in that it would be a literary force, I dont know why or how. Perhaps an inkling and the cover....I know I know. I judged a book by its cover. However, this took me through all the feels and then some. I loved it and then I hated it and then I was wiping tears. All this to say, it made me feel something. And that is where the beauty in this tale lies. 4.5 stars

Slow start to the story, and I wasn’t quite sure where it was going, but about halfway through I understood. This book was a good reminder how we shouldn’t bottle up our thoughts and emotions and should let them go; let the people know who have upset you know. The relationship between this man and his mother was non-existent for years over something that happened during his childhood that he never felt comfortable to speak about.

Oh god what an emotional journey this novel was. I found it hard to stomach sometimes due to my own family history, but I also found this novel to be cathartic and worth the struggle. Please consider checking out this novel if the premise excites you, it is worth every word of every page. Delightfully deep and poignant, this will be one of the best books of 2025 for sure.

Thank you to Adam Haslett, Little Brown and Co., and Netgalley for the ARc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

This was an extremely intriguing and well written story of the complexities of the human heart, family dynamics, and the trauma stored in the body. I couldn't stop reading it despite the difficult subject matter. The relatability to he characters' layered emotions was well developed and mapped. Strong read.

At times, the title of this novel seemed a bit misleading, but then at the end, when our main character, Peter, finally visits his mother, Ann, after many years of estrangement, the writing becomes vivid and powerful, and the readers at least see Peter, with his lesbian, as minister mother, at her lesbian retreat center in Vermont. Until then, we see Peter, a gay immigration and asylum attorney, focus on one client, Vasel, a young Albanian gay man, who he seems to secretly have a crush on, and we hear a lot about legal cases going on in the office, with a few too many names and characters being dropped that we don't really see much of, and even Vasel disappears for a long while. Then there's some flashbacks from when Peter was fifteen, hanging out with a few friends, one who he gives blow job to but who doesn't reciprocate or ever kiss him, and that friendship ends when a friend sees the two of them together in bed. Unfortunately, his father moves out at that time because his mother begins a relationship with Clare, and then the father returns home shortly afterwards to die, and the older sister, Liz, hangs out at home more and devotes all her time to the dying father, while Peter misses Jared, who has cut him out of his life, and then watches his father and Liz reunite, while he remains disconnected from everyone.

Two days after his father dies, he reconnects with Jared, and another tragedy occurs, an event that causes him to leave home for college, disinterested in continuing a relationship with his mother, and he rarely sees his sister, who makes several attempts to stay in his life, until about twenty years later, when Vasel doesn't show up for his big day in court and Peter suffers from vertical walking home, and then decides to visit his mother in Vermont, where the sister and her young son also decide to show up, and the family reunites, and Peter and his mother hash out the grief he's felt over what happened to Jared, and it's their reconciliation where the narrative of the novel really picks up steam and we see Ann and Peter as humans, failed and humble, and finally capable of forgiveness.

Adam Haslett burst on the literary scene in 2002 with his debut story collection, You Are Not a Stranger Here. Amazingly, he’s only published three (soon to be four) books, and yet he’s been a finalist for two Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction and two National Book Awards.

Mothers and Sons, Haslett’s fourth book, which will publish in January, is another well-told and deeply felt novel. It’s a story about family, love, grief, overcoming your past, and how trauma can change us completely. It’s also a story of empathy, and how challenging it can be to care for broken people when we are broken ourselves.

Peter is a Legal Aid immigration lawyer. He spends his days defending those seeking asylum from their home countries, and he often deals not only with his clients, but the families they would leave behind if they were sent back home. While he fights to keep families together, the irony is that he has been estranged from his mother, Ann, for many years.

Ann, who was a successful pastor, now runs a retreat center in Vermont with her partner, Clare. She wishes she could reconnect with Peter, but knows the fracture between them runs deep.

Peter’s most recent case is defending Vasel, a young Albanian man seeking asylum because he is gay. This case triggers many memories for Peter, who is also gay, as he remembers his first same-sex relationship and the tragedies that occurred. Peter’s story is intertwined with Vasel’s and Ann’s, and the book culminates in a very powerful and affecting climax.

I have always been dazzled by Haslett’s storytelling ability, and this book is no exception. I’ll definitely be thinking about this for a while.

Thanks to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for the advance copy! The book will publish 1/7/2025.

A heavier book than the romance ones I've been reading lately. I was into it! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. I found the title intriguing as I'm a mom to a son. The writer explored the son's relationships and a time in his life. I found it to be well written and interesting. It kept my attention.