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A Perfectly Good Family
Lionel Shriver
Following the success of ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ and ‘The Post-Birthday World’, ‘A Perfectly Good Family’ is coming back into print after being unavailable for years.After having escaped for years to London, Corlis McCrea returns to the grand Reconstruction mansion where she grew up in North Carolina, now willed to the three grown children following the death of their parents. All three want the house.Fiscal necessity dictates that two must buy a third out. Just as she was torn as a girl, the sister must choose between her decent younger brother and the renegade eldest—the black sheep who covets his legacy in order to destroy it. The adult siblings re-enact the deep enmities and loyalties of childhood, as each bids for a bigger slice of the pie.
Copyright (#ud4ac319c-efa5-510d-893a-df914bb12a31)
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
First published in Great Britain by Faber and Faber 1996
Copyright © Lionel Shriver 1996
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com)
Lionel Shriver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Source ISBN: 9780007578023
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007301744
Version: 2015-08-20
Dedication (#ud4ac319c-efa5-510d-893a-df914bb12a31)
TO DON AND PEGGY SHRIVER
from whom, on balance, I have inherited more strengths than foibles—the most parents could hope for any child
A son could bear complacently the death of his father, while the loss of inheritance might drive him to despair.
Machiavelli, The Prince
Table of Contents
Cover (#ucee0f9d1-2ddf-59c8-8f7a-04ae84cd308b)
Title Page (#u6a1607e2-d457-5071-ae58-7464df275c36)
Copyright (#u836253a3-6ae6-568d-9f84-77dde2e4b811)
Dedication (#u44579791-adb3-5548-90e1-3e5c4e88a0ce)
Epigraph (#u8251c0c1-6845-5a6e-b192-eda4177d700e)
chapter one (#uc35e8d19-4986-5562-a681-0ef9b7cf83a7)
chapter two (#u0a2b2f87-8aa7-502c-8966-97f9d718969f)
chapter three (#ua302d864-0488-5cd1-8a2d-62b169e41b02)
chapter four (#ue58d6660-1071-53e5-ad0b-533d3a614b83)
chapter five (#u247fe771-8c18-5796-9333-3f454e93c7ec)
chapter six (#ue96393c6-6b37-5acc-b798-32ba3b18414b)
chapter seven (#u5d2eadc3-fc15-536b-b37d-bc2f139dd7eb)
chapter eight (#udeb86c45-258b-57b9-b09a-51f5d06355bb)
chapter nine (#u261fc7fb-7d1a-5ed2-8115-a708449b3962)
chapter ten (#uac0271bb-c6f7-5480-a29d-c144bf46b904)
chapter eleven (#u25f32743-8bfe-5922-b6f1-9e09d14b6cc1)
chapter twelve (#u294f916d-c396-55ba-8871-c4994d7d1b88)
chapter thirteen (#u5164b386-7610-55a6-8f01-d1ca6eec8afa)
chapter fourteen (#u1a57e9bd-d3b2-5770-be66-b2157e23f531)
chapter fifteen (#ub109448a-532d-508c-be5d-4ce827c5be22)
chapter sixteen (#u69a22a00-b5c6-5964-9f21-e3089a798ff2)
chapter seventeen (#uf411865e-53b2-5337-9443-22f9a7d0dede)
chapter eighteen (#u7b59f6f7-0452-5fb3-9b3b-57031d395a9a)
chapter nineteen (#u1d1adf36-390e-5872-9c71-6c7bbd3391bb)
chapter twenty (#u770f230d-399c-5f33-83b6-1756277057ba)
About the book (#ubc1be8d1-72af-57b4-af9f-ed730a69fdf3)
Praise for A Perfectly Good Family (#u54d532ce-4c15-57e7-91a4-72b030c11580)
About the Author (#u7ba74a89-1093-552a-bb1d-8a7dacb3ebe7)
Also by Lionel Shriver (#u7c657221-3960-5f9d-ae57-be728183cb56)
About the Publisher (#uf1be582f-1cb3-544b-938f-2e079621a35c)
chapter one (#ud4ac319c-efa5-510d-893a-df914bb12a31)
Don’t tell me,” said the taxi driver, rubber-necking at the formidable Victorian manor. “Your mother’s Norman Bates.”
“My mother’s dead,” I said. Harsh, but the information was so fresh for me, only two weeks old, that I was still repeating it to myself.
“Don’t you strain yourself, Missy.” He lunged from the front seat to take the luggage from me: two leather monsters and a bulging carry-on. I’d been overweight at Heathrow, and lucky that in November the plane was not too full.
Lionel Shriver
Following the success of ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ and ‘The Post-Birthday World’, ‘A Perfectly Good Family’ is coming back into print after being unavailable for years.After having escaped for years to London, Corlis McCrea returns to the grand Reconstruction mansion where she grew up in North Carolina, now willed to the three grown children following the death of their parents. All three want the house.Fiscal necessity dictates that two must buy a third out. Just as she was torn as a girl, the sister must choose between her decent younger brother and the renegade eldest—the black sheep who covets his legacy in order to destroy it. The adult siblings re-enact the deep enmities and loyalties of childhood, as each bids for a bigger slice of the pie.
Copyright (#ud4ac319c-efa5-510d-893a-df914bb12a31)
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
First published in Great Britain by Faber and Faber 1996
Copyright © Lionel Shriver 1996
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com)
Lionel Shriver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Source ISBN: 9780007578023
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007301744
Version: 2015-08-20
Dedication (#ud4ac319c-efa5-510d-893a-df914bb12a31)
TO DON AND PEGGY SHRIVER
from whom, on balance, I have inherited more strengths than foibles—the most parents could hope for any child
A son could bear complacently the death of his father, while the loss of inheritance might drive him to despair.
Machiavelli, The Prince
Table of Contents
Cover (#ucee0f9d1-2ddf-59c8-8f7a-04ae84cd308b)
Title Page (#u6a1607e2-d457-5071-ae58-7464df275c36)
Copyright (#u836253a3-6ae6-568d-9f84-77dde2e4b811)
Dedication (#u44579791-adb3-5548-90e1-3e5c4e88a0ce)
Epigraph (#u8251c0c1-6845-5a6e-b192-eda4177d700e)
chapter one (#uc35e8d19-4986-5562-a681-0ef9b7cf83a7)
chapter two (#u0a2b2f87-8aa7-502c-8966-97f9d718969f)
chapter three (#ua302d864-0488-5cd1-8a2d-62b169e41b02)
chapter four (#ue58d6660-1071-53e5-ad0b-533d3a614b83)
chapter five (#u247fe771-8c18-5796-9333-3f454e93c7ec)
chapter six (#ue96393c6-6b37-5acc-b798-32ba3b18414b)
chapter seven (#u5d2eadc3-fc15-536b-b37d-bc2f139dd7eb)
chapter eight (#udeb86c45-258b-57b9-b09a-51f5d06355bb)
chapter nine (#u261fc7fb-7d1a-5ed2-8115-a708449b3962)
chapter ten (#uac0271bb-c6f7-5480-a29d-c144bf46b904)
chapter eleven (#u25f32743-8bfe-5922-b6f1-9e09d14b6cc1)
chapter twelve (#u294f916d-c396-55ba-8871-c4994d7d1b88)
chapter thirteen (#u5164b386-7610-55a6-8f01-d1ca6eec8afa)
chapter fourteen (#u1a57e9bd-d3b2-5770-be66-b2157e23f531)
chapter fifteen (#ub109448a-532d-508c-be5d-4ce827c5be22)
chapter sixteen (#u69a22a00-b5c6-5964-9f21-e3089a798ff2)
chapter seventeen (#uf411865e-53b2-5337-9443-22f9a7d0dede)
chapter eighteen (#u7b59f6f7-0452-5fb3-9b3b-57031d395a9a)
chapter nineteen (#u1d1adf36-390e-5872-9c71-6c7bbd3391bb)
chapter twenty (#u770f230d-399c-5f33-83b6-1756277057ba)
About the book (#ubc1be8d1-72af-57b4-af9f-ed730a69fdf3)
Praise for A Perfectly Good Family (#u54d532ce-4c15-57e7-91a4-72b030c11580)
About the Author (#u7ba74a89-1093-552a-bb1d-8a7dacb3ebe7)
Also by Lionel Shriver (#u7c657221-3960-5f9d-ae57-be728183cb56)
About the Publisher (#uf1be582f-1cb3-544b-938f-2e079621a35c)
chapter one (#ud4ac319c-efa5-510d-893a-df914bb12a31)
Don’t tell me,” said the taxi driver, rubber-necking at the formidable Victorian manor. “Your mother’s Norman Bates.”
“My mother’s dead,” I said. Harsh, but the information was so fresh for me, only two weeks old, that I was still repeating it to myself.
“Don’t you strain yourself, Missy.” He lunged from the front seat to take the luggage from me: two leather monsters and a bulging carry-on. I’d been overweight at Heathrow, and lucky that in November the plane was not too full.
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