Fair Ones: A Double Novel

"Millet's a weird, wry genius." -- Literary Hub

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.

Lydia Millet is the author of more than twenty books, including A Children's Bible, a finalist for the National Book Award and one of the New York Times "10 Best Books" of the year in 2020, and a story collection called Love in Infant Monkeys that was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize. Other books have won awards from PEN-Center USA and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Millet works at the Center for Biological Diversity and lives outside Tucson, Arizona.