The Stories We Tell Ourselves in “Mothers and Sons” - Chicago Review of Books (2025)

Most of us are masters at suppressing our feelings. We go to great lengths to pretend that we’re fine, undeterred, and strong when inside, that couldn’t be further from the truth. For centuries, one of literature’s key purposes has been to show us that the opposite is true, that we’re stronger for being vulnerable and honest. Joining this catalog is Adam Haslett’s new novel, Mothers and Sons, a tender examination of family resentments that are really reflections of the self.

40-year-old Peter Fischer is an asylum lawyer in New York City and seemingly couldn’t be more different than his mother, Ann. A former priest, she leads meditation retreats for women on a utopian compound in Vermont with her partner and co-founder, Clare.

Peter hasn’t visited his mother in years and rarely calls. Initially, it’s easy to assume this is because she decided to break apart the family—when teenage Peter and his sister Liz were still living at home, the rectory where Ann was a priest, she decided to break up the marriage and pursue a relationship with Clare. Shortly after her husband Richard moves out, he moves back in so the family can care for him as he dies after getting sick. What teenager wouldn’t be mad?

But more is revealed about the family’s past and the real reason Peter stays away from them. He has held onto guilt about an accident he was a part of when he was in love for the first time. And the only other person who knows is his mother. Now, he buries himself in work and avoids meaningful relationships, a life crammed with too many hidden feelings, which eventually build until they overflow, and his façade shatters.

The first time we meet Ann, she is meditating and showing gratitude for her life and the people in it. While Peter avoids self-reflection, Ann attends to it daily.

Mothers and Sons at first feels like an ambitious title. How could an author encapsulate the strange dynamic that is hard to articulate? But Haslett subtly raises point after point that touches on how boys and girls are raised to be different, as well as the ways mothers and sons, in particular, put pressure on each other.

One example is how mothers view their sons differently from their daughters. They can be closer with the girls but perhaps more consumed by their sons. While visiting Ann with her husband and child, Liz comments on this as Ann talks about Peter’s life and absence.

“Weird, isn’t it?” Liz says. “He’s the one you’re always curious about. Yet look who’s here.” It’s often the absent, not the near, who are more desirable in all their mystery and distance. Mothers and sons tend to maintain that distance.

Peter takes on a young Albanian client named Vasel, who came to the States after being spotted with another boy and nearly killed by his father and brother. His situation starts to churn all that Peter hides. His growing obsession with the case begs the question: does Peter see himself in Vasel? Is it attraction? Or does Vasel remind him of his first love, Jared, a relationship that ended in tragedy? Perhaps he is finally willing to process it.

Peter’s father, Richard, was always slightly homophobic, which kept Peter silent about who he was. A recurring family story is when Richard worked as a logger in the North Woods of Minnesota when he was young. He got into a fight with another man, a bad apple, and came back with a broken arm. But a few days before Richard dies, he tells Peter that they fought all those years ago because that man came onto him, and he had to defend himself.

Now, Peter wonders if his father’s story is just one way to understand what happened. He begins to think that the man could have simply been like Peter had been with Jared, hoping his desires would be returned.

Peter reflects, “Shaping narratives. Presenting events in a particular order. It’s what I’ve spent my adult life doing. Whittling stories down into the patterns that the law can see. And all of them written for precisely the same purpose: to justify to the system a person’s fear of returning to the scene of the crime. And yet in that shaping what violence is done to the fullness of an actual life.”

Maybe letting go of narratives he’s shaped to protect himself, both at work and in life, will allow him true connection with others and self-acceptance.

Mothers and Sons has a simple brilliance and charm, a subtle pull to delve deeper into the lives of these fraught characters and uncover the narratives we tell ourselves versus the truth. These are good people living ordinary lives, and it’s a pleasure to read about them.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves in“Mothers and Sons” - Chicago Review of Books (1)

FICTION

Mothers and Sons

By Adam Haslett

Little, Brown and Company

Published January 7, 2025

The Stories We Tell Ourselves in“Mothers and Sons” - Chicago Review of Books (2)

The Chicago Review of Books Newsletter

Our monthly newsletter to help you keep up with Chirb-related goings on.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves in“Mothers and Sons” - Chicago Review of Books (3)

Meredith Boe

Meredith Boe is a Pushcart Prize–nominated writer, editor, and poet. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Passengers Journal, Newfound, Another Chicago Magazine, Chicago Reader, Mud Season Review, After Hours, and elsewhere, and her chapbook What City won the 2018 Debut Series Chapbook Contest from Paper Nautilus.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves in “Mothers and Sons” - Chicago Review of Books (2025)
Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Arielle Torp

Last Updated:

Views: 5866

Rating: 4 / 5 (41 voted)

Reviews: 88% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Arielle Torp

Birthday: 1997-09-20

Address: 87313 Erdman Vista, North Dustinborough, WA 37563

Phone: +97216742823598

Job: Central Technology Officer

Hobby: Taekwondo, Macrame, Foreign language learning, Kite flying, Cooking, Skiing, Computer programming

Introduction: My name is Arielle Torp, I am a comfortable, kind, zealous, lovely, jolly, colorful, adventurous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.