This short story revolves around three brothers who are grieving the loss of their mother and centers on their struggle to spend the holidays together among the turmoil that follows. Amidst the holiday season, the boys and their father deal with their own agony at the effects of the eldest brother’s public writing about a family – whether it is their own is never fully clear. As we all head into Thanksgiving, this story will remind us that this holiday of thanks, coming together, and celebrating family can also often be a bumpy ride.
“With a talent for building,” as Sam Tanenhaus wrote on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, “narratives at once intimate and expansive, plausible and inventive.” McInerney brings us a story that will linger in your imagination long after the Thanksgiving table is cleared.
Originally published as the December 2023 dispatch
Jay McInerney is an author, screenwriter, and editor. His most celebrated works include Bright Lights, Big City, the Calloway trilogy, and the short-story collection How It Ended. Through the use of a satiric, oftentimes deadpan, tone, in conjunction with a profound emotional vulnerability, McInerney artfully examines themes such as grief, evolution, and redemption.
McInerney was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1955, and went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Williams College. Before his literary career, he worked as a reporter for the Hunterdon County Democrat and taught English in Japan through the Princeton-in-Asia Fellowship at Institute for International Studies.
