Mothers and Sons

A Novel

By: Adam Haslett

Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

A mother and son, estranged but yearning for reunion, reckon at last with the secret that has kept them apart for decades in this highly anticipated novel by "one of the country's most talented writers" (Wall Street Journal​)

At forty, Peter, an asylum lawyer in New York City, is overworked and isolated. He spends his days immersed in the struggles of immigrants only to return to an empty apartment and occasional hook-ups with a man who wants more than Peter can give. But when the asylum case of a young gay man pierces Peter's numbness, the event that he has avoided for twenty years returns to haunt him.

Ann, his mother, who runs a women's retreat center she founded after leaving his father, is wounded by the estrangement from Peter but cherishes the world she has built. She long ago banished from her mind the decision that divided her from her son. But as Peter’s case plunges him further into the fraught memory of his first love and the night of violence that changed his life forever, he and his mother must confront the secret that tore them apart.

With unsurpassed emotional depth, Mothers and Sons reveals all that is lost by looking away from the past and the love that might be restored by facing it. In his spellbinding new novel, Adam Haslett demonstrates yet again his mastery of “a rich assortment of literary gifts” (New York Times).

©2025 Adam Haslett (P)2025 Little, Brown & Company

Critic reviews

“Mothers and Sons is both moving and deeply compelling, a story about the search for our own humanity, and the lengths we will go to maintain it. A new book by Adam Haslett is always cause for celebration. He is one of our very best writers.”—Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake and The Dutch House

“Mothers and Sons is like sonar in a lake, pinging out everything submerged, the hidden stories, the shames and the joys. There’s nothing else like it. Haslett’s characters feel so real, their choices so hard, their lives so true. He is everything you want in a writer.”—Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Less