I really enjoyed May we be Forgiven and so when I saw this at my local book store I was keen to read it and added it to my christmas list.
Here’s the blurb …
From a writer who is always “razor sharp and furiously good” (Zadie Smith), a darkly comic political parable braided with a Bildungsroman that takes us inside the heart of a divided country.
The Big Guy loves his family, money and country. Undone by the results of the 2008 presidential election, he taps a group of like-minded men to reclaim their version of the American Dream. As they build a scheme to disturb and disrupt, the Big Guy also faces turbulence within his family. His wife, Charlotte, grieves a life not lived, while his 18-year-old daughter, Meghan, begins to realize that her favorite subject–history–is not exactly what her father taught her.
In a story that is as much about the dynamics within a family as it is about the desire for those in power to remain in power, Homes presciently unpacks a dangerous rift in American identity, prompting a reconsideration of the definition of truth, freedom and democracy–and exploring the explosive consequences of what happens when the same words mean such different things to people living together under one roof.
In her first novel since the Women’s Prize award-winning May We Be Forgiven, A.M. Homes delivers us back to ourselves in this stunning alternative history that is both terrifyingly prescient, deeply tender and devastatingly funny.
I am not overly interested in politics (I had to research the 2008 election to find out the candidates!). The concept is terrifying because it seems so real, all of the things they plan ‘to make America great again’ are happening; plague (Covid), terrible weather events, police shootings, the riot on January 6th. When the conspirators (group of unhappy men?) meet they talk in such an obscure way I really had no idea what they were planning – a military coup? destroying the economy?
I can appreciate how clever this novel is, but it is not my cup of tea. You might need to be American to really appreciate this one.
A review