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May We Be Forgiven: A Novel by A. M. Homes
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May We Be Forgiven: A Novel (original 2012; edition 2012)

by A. M. Homes

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1,0905918,546 (3.64)135
Feeling overshadowed by his more-successful younger brother, Harold is shocked by his brother's violent act that irrevocably changes their lives, placing Harold in the role of father figure to his brother's adolescent children and caregiver to his aging parents.
Member:kalpanapster
Title:May We Be Forgiven: A Novel
Authors:A. M. Homes
Info:Viking Penguin (2012), Edition: 1st, Hardcover, 480 pages
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May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes (2012)

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» See also 135 mentions

English (55)  Dutch (2)  French (1)  Catalan (1)  All languages (59)
Showing 1-5 of 55 (next | show all)
Starts off strong but goes from one extreme of negativity to an overly sappy, heart-warming second half. I enjoyed how the author has fun with Jewish family craziness. ( )
  monicaberger | Jan 22, 2024 |
Ojalá nos perdonen
A. M. Homes
Publicado: 2012 | 439 páginas
Novela Psicológico

Tolstói iniciaba «Anna Karenina» con aquella célebre sentencia que dice «todas las familias felices son iguales; las familias infelices lo son cada una a su manera». ¿Siguen siendo las familias de hoy como las de la época de Tolstói? A. M. Homes parece llevar tiempo buscando la respuesta a esta pregunta, porque la familia —sus desequilibrios, disfunciones y secretos inconfesables— es un tema recurrente en su obra siempre acompañado de una mirada ácida y sarcástica sobre las paradojas y perplejidades de la sociedad norteamericana contemporánea. En esta novela aparecen de nuevo la familia y la América suburbana a través de dos hermanos. Harry, el mayor, historiador que trabaja en una biografía de Nixon, siempre ha sentido cierta envidia del pequeño, George, más alto, más listo y más próspero con una prometedora carrera como ejecutivo televisivo. Pero Harry también sabe que George tiene un temperamento explosivo y es imprevisible cuando pierde el control. Una de estas pérdidas de control de George acaba en tragedia: atropella a una pareja, deja un niño huérfano y, atormentado por la culpa, acaba ingresado en un psiquiátrico. Harry pasa entonces por un periodo complicado, que incluirá un revolcón con su cuñada con un final truculento, la búsqueda de sexo por internet, la preocupación por sus ancianos padres y la cólera de su mujer cuando descubre el revolcón. Pero sobre todo Harry debe hacerse cargo de los dos hijos de su hermano, a los que se sumará el huérfano del accidente, y con ellos formará una nueva familia, sin duda peculiar, pero que permitirá restañar heridas y pensar en el futuro.
  libreriarofer | Dec 13, 2023 |
This is a very difficult book to read because of acts, failures of responsibility and judgment, & failures to act on the part of several characters are extraordinary - even bizarre - & painful.
This book is worth the pain of reading it. The author has done a marvelous job conceptualizing the various plots and characters, pulling this book of broad scope together, and doing so with not only facility but artistry of the English language. ( )
  RickGeissal | Aug 16, 2023 |
Solid dysfunctional fun, at least for the first half. Sorry to say I did begin to tire of the main character / narrator by the end. ( )
  Cr00 | Apr 1, 2023 |
I loved this book but am going to find it hard to explain why. It starts pretty dramatically and then follows Harry as he drifts from one ludicrous situation to another, with very little rhyme or reason to it. Don De Lillo keeps turning up in the local shop, there's a big subplot about Nixon, random women keep wanting to have sex with him, his brother is in a world of madness, there's a Bar Mitzah in South Africa. None of it quite makes sense, but it's a great read, and beyond the flippant funny stuff it's ultimately a story of a disparate group of people becoming better people, becoming a family.

On re-reading 9 years later it is still a great book. It has something of a Corrections vibe to it. ( )
  AlisonSakai | Nov 1, 2022 |
Showing 1-5 of 55 (next | show all)


Almost exactly three-quarters of the way through this wonderful, wild, heartbreaking, hilarious and astonishing novel, A M Homes gives us this paragraph: "And then – the real craziness starts. Later, I will wonder if this part really happened or if I dreamed it."

Given the huge amount of craziness in the 355 pages that precedes that paragraph, this really sets the reader up for a humdinger of a finale, one that Homes delivers with aplomb.....This is a piercing, perceptive and deeply funny novel about the nature of life, and about finding your family wherever you can, wherever you get comfort and something approaching love.
 
The narrative is unrelenting, and yet it makes a kind of sense that all these troubles should be brought to bear on a few individuals. What’s interesting about this book is that for all its ferocious now-ness, its messages are old fashioned. Peace is found in a South African village, amongst community and participation; acts of kindness bring their own rewards. Homes, however, is not a pious or a schmaltzy writer – she is aware that things are compromised, as when George’s son Nate realises that the South African villagers he’s been supporting are really only interested in what material goods they can buy. But this doesn’t detract from the morality of the book’s core. Only connect, Homes tells us, and we can escape the nightmare of the 21st century – if only for a while. .....AM Homes’s ambitious novel, May We Be Forgiven, impresses.
 
To pair sociological sweep with psychological intimacy, as this book sets out to do, is a laudable ambition. It may even be where the vital center of American fiction is, circa 2012. But Homes hasn’t yet developed the formal vocabulary to reconcile her Cheever side and her DeLillo side. Instead, they end up licensing each other’s failures, canceling each other out. And so what might have been a stereoscopic view of The Way We Live Now ends as an ungainly portmanteau: a picaresque in which nothing much happens, a confession we can’t quite believe, a satire whose targets are already dead.
 
And the novel is consistently interesting in more sombre ways, too, as when Harry discusses the "rusty sense of disgust" that he suspects might be his soul. May We Be Forgiven is a semi-serious, semi-effective, semi-brilliant novel which could not be called, overall, an artistic success. But you'd have to have no sense of the absurd, and no sense of humour, not to be pretty impressed.
 

» Add other authors (10 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Homes, A.M.primary authorall editionsconfirmed
Forner, AlisonCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Herzke, IngoÜbersetzersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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For Claudia to whom I owe a debt of gratitude
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Do you want my recipe for disaster?
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Please do not combine with the single title book or the book containing this story. Thanks.
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Feeling overshadowed by his more-successful younger brother, Harold is shocked by his brother's violent act that irrevocably changes their lives, placing Harold in the role of father figure to his brother's adolescent children and caregiver to his aging parents.

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Book description
Harold Silver has spent a lifetime watching his younger brother, George, a taller, smarter, and more successful high-flying TV executive, acquire a covetable wife, two kids, and a beautiful home in the suburbs of New York City. But Harry, a historian and Nixon scholar, also knows George has a murderous temper, and when George loses control, the result is an act of violence so shocking that the brothers are hurled into entirely new lives in which they both must seek absolution.
Harry finds himself suddenly playing parent to his brother's two adolescent children, tumbling - hilariously -
down the rabbit hole of Internet sex, and dealing with aging parents who move through time like travelers on a fantastic voyage. Never having realized he was lost, he slowly starts to open up to the world around him, to rise to the occasion and take some risks. As Harry builds a new life and a modern family created by choice rather than biology, we become aware of the ways in which our history, both personal and political, can become our destiny and compel us to either repeat our errors or be the catalyst for change.
In this bold, playful, tenderhearted, and redemptive novel, by turns rollicking and serious and filled with all of her signature touches and flourishes, A.M. Homes digs deeply into themes of the American family, the near biblical intensity of fraternal relationships, our need to make sense of things, and our craving for connection. May We Be Forgiven is an unnerving, funny tale of unexpected intimacies and of how one deeply fractured family might begin to put itself back together.
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