A Perfectly Good Family

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 (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter seven (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter eight (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter nine (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter ten (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)