Fair Ones

From the publisher

Coming October 6th

Lydia Millet’s dialogue-driven, fast-moving double novel Fair Ones follows two Brooklyn women in their forties reeling from the sudden and baffling death of their friend Claire. Fair, Mara’s account, opens in the wake of initial shock as she and Jen come to grips with the enigma of Claire’s killing. Ones, told from Jen’s point of view, picks up a year later as she and Mara wrestle with new relationships and old secrets.

In this vibrant, funny-sad fiction of companionship and solitude, Millet dazzles with dry wit and sharp prose. The narrators’ inner and outer conversations, and their ongoing entanglement with the memory of Claire, explore the ways we create and define ourselves through others. Fair Ones is a love song to the intricate annoyances of families both chosen and unchosen—and to the banality, bombast, and humble beauties of midlife friendships.

The various “-ists” who people these linked stories—from futurists to insurrectionists to cosmetologists—include a professor who’s morbidly fixated on an old friend’s Instagram account; a woman convinced that her bright young son-in-law is watching geriatric porn; a bodybuilder who lives an incel’s fantasy life; a couple who surveil the neighbors after finding obscene notes in their mailbox; a pretentious academic accused of plagiarism; and a suburban ex-marathoner dad obsessed with hosting refugees in a tiny house in his backyard.

Praise

“Millet’s a weird, wry genius.”

– Literary Hub

“This is a story that’s honest, warm, and utterly realistic for anyone who’s enjoyed the bonds of a close, confiding friendship.”

– Harvey Freedenberg, Shelf Awareness (starred review)