The Greatest Possible Good
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
The hilarious, thought-provoking new novel from the Somerset Maugham and British Book Award-winning Ben Brooks.
‘A sharp-witted tragicomedy about money, morality, and a family teetering on the brink. A splendidly funny novel.’ Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street
'Brooks is a frighteningly young talent.' Tim Key
'I love Ben Brooks.' Matt Haig
How much should one person give to make the world a better place? How much can one family take?
“I’d like you to imagine that you’re walking to work one day and you come upon a child drowning in a pool of water. But imagine that someone refused to jump in after the child on the grounds that it would ruin his three-hundred-pound pair of John Lobb loafers. We’d consider them utterly immoral, would we not?’
Arthur Candlewick spends three days in a disused mineshaft with only his son’s drug stash, a book on the concept of ‘effective altruism’ and a bottle of medium-priced Bordeaux for company. When he emerges, he has made the life-changing decision to become a good man.
Deciding to sell the family timber business and give away his wealth to charity, Arthur’s family become convinced that he has lost his mind.
His university-bound daughter, Evangeline, wants to change the world but perhaps not at the cost of her own privileged life.
His son, Emil, good at maths and not much else, becomes more distant than ever.
And his wife, Yara, who arrives at airports four hours early and fears that AI and climate change will leave her children unemployed, just wants the doctor to run another brain scan on her husband.
Incisive, hilarious and unflinchingly human, The Greatest Possible Good asks fundamental questions about what it means to live a good life while introducing the world to one of the great families of contemporary literature.
‘Ben Brooks is a magical imp who pumps out dark nuggets of poetry and makes you snort with laughter.’ Noel Fielding
‘Brooks has the timing of a genius stand-up comic.’ Richard Milward
‘Ben Brooks is a writer who genuinely excites me.’ Colin Herd, 3:AM Magazine
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A father sets out to give away his family's fortune after a life-altering change of perspective in the middling latest from Brooks (The Impossible Boy). The story's events are triggered by a freak accident, when Arthur Candlewick falls into a mine shaft. Having counted his lucky stars for surviving, he decides to devote himself to altruism. Without consulting his wife, Yara, a software developer in early retirement who worries about their financial future, Arthur donates millions of pounds from the sale of his lumber company to charity and embarks on giving away everything else. Yara, unsettled but unable to prove he's not in his right mind, divorces him. Arthur relentlessly pursues his goal while Yara starts dating a much younger fitness influencer. Meanwhile, their daughter, Evangeline, gets accepted to Cambridge University but doesn't notice all the red flags about her condescending old-moneyed boyfriend, while her younger brother, Emil, drifts into drug use. The author's fluid prose goes down easy (Yara chooses a bottle of wine because its name is "dimly familiar, as though she'd encountered it once before in a dream"), but the novel fails to generate a meaningful critique of wealth and its corrosive effect on the characters. Brooks reaches for satire but remains mired in the excess of privilege.
