May We Be Forgiven

A. M. Homes · b. 1961 · United States

Why it matters

A mild academic's affair with his brother's wife detonates into a cascade of accidents, violence, and institutionalization, leaving him improvising a chaotic new family out of his brother's children. A sprawling, transgressive black comedy about the wreckage of contemporary American domestic life.

At a glance

A large cast and escalating incident keep the plot busy, though the prose itself stays accessible.