A Better Life 9780008800109 Hardback

A superb satirical novelistWASHINGTON POSTIn a provocative novel addressing contemporary immigration by the sharply observant Lionel Shriver, a New York family takes in a Honduran migrant who may or may not be the innocent paragon she claims to be.An incendiary provocateurEVENING STANDARDA gleeful satire on the immigration debateTHE TIMESGloria Bonaventura, a divorced mother of three living with her 26-year-old son Nico in a sprawling house in Brooklyn, decides to participate in a new city programme Big Apple, Big Heart that would pay her to take in a migrant as a boarder. Gloria is thrilled when sweet, kind, helpful Martine arrives. But Nico is sceptical. A classic live-at-home, unemployed Gen Zer with no interest in adulthood, Nico resents the indignity of moving from his self-contained basement flat and back into his childhood bedroom.As the months go by, Martine endears herself to both Nicos sisters, while finding her way into Glorias heart. But as Martines disturbingly dodgy compatriots begin to show up, Nico grows only more hostile to both his mothers altruism and the migrant crisis in general though turns out to be anything but a reliable narrator himself.