& Sons
Who is A. N. Dyer? &
Sons is a literary masterwork for readers of The Art of Fielding, The Emperor’s
Children, and Wonder Boys—the panoramic, deeply affecting story of an iconic
novelist, two interconnected families, and the heartbreaking truths that
fiction can hide.
The funeral of Charles
Henry Topping on Manhattan’s Upper East Side would have been a minor affair
(his two-hundred-word obit in The New York Times notwithstanding) but for the
presence of one particular mourner: the notoriously reclusive author A. N.
Dyer, whose novel Ampersand stands as a classic of American teenage angst. But
as Andrew Newbold Dyer delivers the eulogy for his oldest friend, he suffers a
breakdown over the life he’s led and the people he’s hurt and the novel that
will forever endure as his legacy. He must gather his three sons for the first
time in many years—before it’s too late.
So begins a wild,
transformative, heartbreaking week, as witnessed by Philip Topping, who, like
his late father, finds himself caught up in the swirl of the Dyer family. First
there’s son Richard, a struggling screenwriter and father, returning from
self-imposed exile in California. In the middle lingers Jamie, settled in
Brooklyn after his twenty-year mission of making documentaries about human
suffering. And last is Andy, the half brother whose mysterious birth tore the
Dyers apart seventeen years ago, now in New York on spring break, determined to
lose his virginity before returning to the prestigious New England boarding
school that inspired Ampersand. But only when the real purpose of this reunion
comes to light do these sons realize just how much is at stake, not only for
their father but for themselves and three generations of their family.
In this daring feat of
fiction, David Gilbert establishes himself as one of our most original,
entertaining, and insightful authors. & Sons is that rarest of treasures: a
startlingly imaginative novel about families and how they define us, and the choices
we make when faced with our own mortality.
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