Alison Stewart: This is All Of It, on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Our book club Get Lit with All Of It is in full gear. We are reading Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett. It is the story of a workaholic lawyer, Peter, and his estranged mother Ann. Peter is faced with the case of a young man and it ignites memories and secrets he and his mother share from years ago. Secrets that led to their decades-long estrangement.

Adam Haslett is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel Imagine Me Gone, and the short story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist as well, as well as a National Book Award finalist. Adam will be with us on Wednesday, April 2nd, at our partner's place, the NYPL, for our book club event. You are invited to get your tickets and learn how to borrow your E-copy of Mothers and Sons from our partners at the library.

Head to wnyc.org/getlit. Tickets are free. They tend to sell out really quickly, so reserve yours to get today. Again, that's wnyc.org/getlit. Adam Haslett joins me now with the Get Lit preview. Hi, Adam.

Adam Haslett: Hello, hello. Thank you for having me.

Alison Stewart: When did you start writing this book?

Adam Haslett: I started writing it in 2019. It was in the fall of 2019, and then came the pandemic in 2020. I've been writing it all through those years.

Alison Stewart: What was your original story of the book, and how much did it change?

Adam Haslett: I knew at the beginning that I was going to be writing about this estrangement that you mentioned at the top, the relationship between the son, the immigration lawyer, and his mother, who has gone off and started a women's retreat center up in Vermont. I knew that there was this estranged relationship at the center of the book. I didn't yet know their identities, what they would be doing, and who exactly they would become in my own mind.

I'd gone to law school. I hadn't written about a lawyer before, so it quickly occurred to me that Peter would be a lawyer. A lot of my friends who I went to law school with had become immigration lawyers, so I knew a certain amount about that world, had done some volunteering in that world years ago, before I knew I would write about it. Slowly but surely, it came into view what their work lives would be. Those work lives turned out to be a large part of the book.

Alison Stewart: Where is Peter when we meet him?

Adam Haslett: He is literally in court. He's in an immigration court, Federal Plaza, downtown Manhattan. He's with one of his clients and he's facing the system that a lot of people read about and hear about, but that, up close, is a bit of a meat grinder in which people's most dramatic things that have happened in people's lives are dealt with by a bureaucracy. That's the reality of immigration court.

Alison Stewart: Of all the kind of lawyer he could be, why did you make him an immigration lawyer?

Adam Haslett: Well, I think I've always been interested in the relationships of people in the helping professions, in a sense. The therapists, ministers, even good friends. This is someone who has to help, but they're also constricted by the system they're working in. He needs to get, from each client, a lot of facts, and he needs to get them to tell them stories about the most traumatic things that happen to them.

Unlike a priest or a therapist, he needs it quickly, and he needs it in order to shape it into a story that the law can see. At some point in the book, I say, he whittles stories down into the shapes that the law can comprehend. It just interests me, that perspective of someone who has to help, but also has to translate those stories for courts.

Alison Stewart: I'm going to ask you to read a little bit from the book. Would you set this up for us?

Adam Haslett: Sure. It's really just at the very top, so there's nothing really to explain, but it is, as I said, him in court at the beginning, with one of his clients. It's just capturing the atmosphere in that court. I'll just read very briefly. Judge Manetti calls out a name, Dovgal, Matvey, and a white guy, mid-20s, gray sweatshirt, gold chain, makes his way into the enclosure. He's got a legal aid lawyer with him. The home address is Staten Island.

His lawyer concedes his client received his notice to appear. He concedes he's removable. Declines to specify country for removal. Why make the government's job any easier? Judge Manetti designates Belarus. He's claiming asylum. Failing that, withholding of removal. Failing that, convention against torture. Callahan, the Department of Homeland Security lawyer, points out Dovgal has a theft conviction, so he's expedited. The courtroom is windowless. They all are. There are the fluorescent lights flush to the drop ceiling.

There is the judge's miniature dais, the lawyers' tables in front of it, the low bar with the hinged gate, the dark pink carpet. Respondents and their counsel cramped on benches either side of the gallery aisle, awaiting their turn. No one's allowed to use their phones. All we can do is watch and listen. Beside me on the bench, Sandra Moya whispers something in the ear of her 14-year-old son Felipe. "Ask Mr. Peter," she says. Then Felipe whispers in mine, "How much longer will it be? My mom can't be late to work."

Alison Stewart: That's Adam Haslett reading from Mothers and Sons. It's our March Get Lit with All Of It book club selection. What has led Peter to being a workaholic?

Adam Haslett: Well, I think a couple of things. Loneliness is one of them. I think loneliness is one of the themes of the book. I think in our culture, in the capitalist culture, loneliness is often dealt with by people hiding in work. It's rewarded. It's a thing you're supposed to do, in New York City, competitive business, everybody's always busy. That loneliness, I think, leads him to just spend all of his hours working.

The other thing that's driving it, and you alluded to it a moment ago, is that there are things in his life he doesn't want to look at. There are parts of his past that he doesn't want to look at. His client that he gets, the Albanian young man who's making an asylum claim, brings those memories up.

Alison Stewart: His mother, Ann, lives in Vermont. What's important to know about Ann?

Adam Haslett: She was an Episcopal priest, and when her husband died, she ended up being with a woman, leaving the church, and wanted to found a place where women could-- It's still a spiritual retreat. It's just not a church. It's a place where women who are trying to find direction in their lives, have a spiritual life of some kind, but are up against difficulties of various kinds, go retreat into the rural area, and speak to one another in a safe space, essentially.

She's still listening, she's still being a pastor in a sense, but it's a feminist retreat center, essentially.

Alison Stewart: One review I read said that Ann and Peter were both deeply flawed people. Would you agree?

Adam Haslett: Yes. They're both people who are thinking through how to help other people, but they're also hiding from something. The way they hide is, in fact, by helping others. A lot of the book is about that question of how do you help others, but let the stories you hear move through you, in some way.

Alison Stewart: We ask every author this, if there's an Easter egg in the book, one particular passage that you worked really hard on, or something that you want people to pay attention to while they're reading Mothers and Sons, getting ready for our Get Lit with All Of It book club event.

Adam Haslett: The first paragraph in part three of the book is when Peter really begins to enter back into his memories of this first love of his in high school. That paragraph is one that I probably revised a hundred times. I guess that would be my choice.

Alison Stewart: Adam Haslett is the author of Mothers and Sons, our March Get Lit with All Of It book club selection. Adam, we'll see you on April 2nd.

Adam Haslett: Looking forward to it. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: That is All Of It for today. Coming up on tomorrow's show, a watch party for the hit series Paradise, with Julianne Nicholson, who plays the cunning billionaire known as Sinatra. Plus, we'll continue our series on Women in Production with trailblazing producer-writer Linda Perry. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I'll meet you back here tomorrow.