Thoroughly enjoyed "Fair Ones." Millet did a fabulous job creating multidimensional characters, close friends who shared the loss of a Claire, who died by gun violence. The novel is broken up by seasons. The first year after Claire dies is told by Jen, the second half, one year after Claire's death, is told by Mara, who is plagued by a dark secret. The three women were close friends for years, and in their 40's they remained unmarried and childless. There's a bit of mystique surrounding why the young boy shot their friend and some sleuthing in the search for answers. But it's not just a novel about the murder, the other characters in the novel become integral in the way they weave their lives after Claire's funeral and move the novel forward. Much of the novel is conversational, and even though it's a novel that deals with grief, it's also lighthearted and funny, a fast-paced novel that is a joy to read.

I found this to be a moving novel that transpired in unexpected ways. It lacks a traditional arc and it meandered, but I didn't mind that overall as the characters were well drawn and the overall story components were fascinating. It's an insight look at growing up, growing old, loving, and grieving. Very worthwhile.

Lydia Millet's Fair Ones is an extremely well executed double novel that finds strength in character development, authentic dialogue, multiple points of intrigue and moments of unforgettable prose.
Two Brooklyn friends are faced with the sudden loss of their best friend and process the event during their own portion of the novel. Each part showcases a unique character perspective that covers themes of friendship, death, and change that take place during two different timelines.
We follow Mara first, directly after the shock of their friend's death and Jen second, a year after the events take place.
Millet's use of humor through tragedy truly sets her apart from modern literary fiction authors. She grounds her beautiful prose through these women in a refreshingly simple and human way while perforating darkness with levity.
I enjoyed the entire book and highly recommend!
Thanks W. W. Norton and NetGalley for the advanced review copy.

Fair Ones begins without a main character. Claire is dead, suddenly and bafflingly, and her best friends Mara and Jen, are trying to make sense of what happened to Claire. Lydia Millet structures the book as a double novel: "Fair", told through Mara’s account in the immediate aftermath of Claire’s killing, and "Ones," told from Jen’s perspective a year later. The result is a novel about grief, friendship, and middle age.

Mara and Jen are Brooklyn women in their forties, and Millet is very good on the texture of that stage of life. Claire’s death gives the novel its central mystery, but *Fair Ones* is less interested in solving a crime than in exploring the emotional aftermath of a person becoming unreachable. Mara and Jen keep circling Claire because grief does not move in a straight line.

What I loved most is the dialogue. This is a talky book: fast, cutting, funny, and full of the little evasions and performances that make friendships feel real on the page. Millet understands that women’s conversations can hold everything at once: gossip, moral philosophy, pettiness, fear, generosity, complaint, and devotion. Mara and Jen do not become noble because they are grieving. They remain difficult, funny, perceptive, self-protective, and exhausting. That makes the book more honest than a more sentimental version of this story would have been.

The double structure also works beautifully because it lets the reader feel the shift between the first impact of loss and the later, stranger period when life has continued but the person who died is still central. Mara’s section has the rawness of initial shock, while Jen’s later perspective brings in new relationships and buried information. Together, the two halves ask What remains of a friendship after one friend is gone and the remaining friends are left to interpret her, argue with her memory, and revise the story of who she was?
Lydia Millet has written a strange, smart, emotionally exact book about midlife friendship and I loved it!

#FairOnes #LydiaMillet #WWNorton #NetGalley

Loved this. It's alive with funny little very contemporary conversations, just the kind of thing that hooks me in and keeps me turning pages, and stuff HAPPENS, too, really quite dramatic events from time to time, but the conversations and little personal revelations are the focus. And there's a sincerity to them beyond the surface cleverness of the characters' banter. I'm so won over by Jen's being won over by sixteen-year-old Josh and his Meaning of Life in the wilderness talk, which literally got me kind of choked up. Best read of the year so far.