Unfolding

Told as a dark comedy that doubles as a political allegory and a coming-of-age story, this novel follows a man known as the Big Guy. He prizes his household, his fortune and his nation, and the results of the 2008 presidential election leave him badly shaken. He gathers a circle of men who share his outlook, and together they set out to win back what they believe the American Dream should look like, devising a plan meant to unsettle and upend the status quo.

Trouble also gathers at home. Charlotte, his wife, mourns a life she never got to live, while Meghan, their eighteen-year-old daughter, discovers that the history she loves does not match the version her father has been teaching her.

Homes uses the family to examine a larger question: how far those in power will go to stay there. The novel traces a deep split in American identity and asks what truth, freedom and democracy mean when people sharing one roof attach opposing definitions to the same words.

A.M. Homes wrote this as her first novel since May We Be Forgiven, which received the Women's Prize. Presented as an alternative history, the book mixes a bleak satirical view of the present with tenderness and sharp humor.