Glancing at me, she brushed her hair away with the back of her hand and smiled. “I’m sorry, he’s not home right now, may I take a message?” Jane listens. But then the author throws crass events on to each page, while Harold, a passive character who lets everything happen to him, vomits every which way. Geo, he liked to be called, like that was something cool, something scientific, mathematical, analytical. May We Be Forgiven, By A M Homes This is a savage, inventive and funny novel on the state of the family. May We Be Forgiven is both a narrative masterwork and an impassioned cry of conscience against the selfishness and anomie of the digital generation. The room smells like urine. By Philip Womack 06 November 2012 • 07:00 am AM Homes' new novel is a … This is a Tin Man story, in which the zoned-out Harry slowly grows a heart.” —Carolyn Kellogg, The Los Angeles Times, “Darkly funny…the moments shared between this ad hoc family are the novel’s most endearing…Homes’ signature trait is a fearless inclination to torment her characters and render their failures, believing that the reader is sophisticated enough – and forgiving enough – to tag along.”  —Katie Arnold-Ratliff, Time Magazine, “Homes, whose masterful handling of suburban dystopia merits her own adjective, may have just written her midcareer magnum opus with this portrait of a flawed Nixonian bent on some sort of emotional amnesty.” —Christopher Bollen, Interview, “At once tender and uproariously funny…one of the strangest, most miraculous journeys in recent fiction, not unlike a man swimming home to his lonely house, one swimming pool at a time:  it is an act of desperation turned into one of grace.” —John Freeman, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, “Heartfelt, and hilarious…Although Homes weaves in piercing satire on subjects like healthcare, education, and the prison system, her tone never veers into the overly arch, mostly thanks to Harold – a loveably earnest guy who creates his own kind of oddball, 21st century family.” –Leigh Newman, O The Oprah Magazine, “A.M. I kept watching him as I went back and forth carrying plates into the kitchen—the edges of my fingers dipping into unnameable goo—cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, a cold pearl onion, gristle. One character donates her organs. This, of course, is not the case when A.M. Homes is the person crafting the story. Take him home, get him a doctor and a lawyer—these things can get ugly.”. With her latest novel, “May We Be Forgiven,” Homes has returned to the darkness. “I’m a company man, heart and soul,” George says. I love stories about dysfunctional families, but if they’re not done well, they can be tiresome and banal. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 15, 2014. I stood in their kitchen picking at the carcass while Jane did the dishes, bright-blue gloves on, up to her elbows in suds. I followed her like a dog, wanting more. You May Also Like … Homes is a writer I’ll pretty much follow anywhere because she’s indeed so smart, it’s scary; yet she’s not without heart…. Lisa Gee. His dozen-plus Emmys have seeped out of his office and are now scattered around the house, along with various other awards and citations rendered in cut crystal, each one celebrating George’s ability to parse popular culture, to deliver us back to ourselves—ever so slightly mockingly, in the format best known as the half-hour sitcom or the news hour. Brief content visible, double tap to read full content. I feel as if I could go on reading about these characters lives forever and was sad to be "seeing" the end of them at the novel's conclusion. 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. Jane takes the coffee cup from George and hands it to me. May We Be Forgiven (Book) : Homes, A. M. : 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. “Tell him the real criminals are coming soon and if he doesn’t come out now they’ll plug him up the bung hole in the night.”. I do it and then sit back down on the sofa. It is almost eight o’clock on an evening towards the end of February when Jane calls. Penguin Books; Reprint edition (September 24, 2013). I went back for more. The sample for Kindle is okay, but the rest is not, Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 17, 2017. They named him George. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions. Rescue crew used the Jaws of Life to free the wife, upon release she expired.”, “Her legs fell out of the car,” someone calls out from a back office. Unable to add item to List. The cast of characters experience adultery, accidents, divorce, and death. “Why are you here?” he asks me. May We Be Forgiven is a semi-serious, semi-effective, semi-brilliant novel which could not be called, overall, an artistic success. He takes off his shoes, socks, pants, boxers, jacket, shirt, undershirt, and stuffs all of it into the kitchen trash can. “Something is wrong with him,” Jane says. “You sure he’s not the butcher’s boy?” my father would ask jokingly. “Car accident. Not sue I would read anything else by Homes, but never say never. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. On the way to the police station, that’s what I’m thinking. Find all the books, read about the author, and more. It's certainly not for everyone though, you'd have to enjoy reading books with very dark humor and not offend easily in order to like this one. It won the 2013 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize for Fiction).