My Darling Boy

One of The New Yorker's Best Books of the Year

Longlisted for the 2026 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award


A brilliant and gut-wrenching novel about a father and son from a “master” (Lee Martin) of the tragi-comic.

Known for his bold voice and unforgettable characters, John Dufresne tells the story of Olney, whose beloved son Cully collapses into addiction and vanishes into the chaotic netherworld of southern Florida. Aided by his terminally ill girlfriend and the colorful inhabitants of a local motel—including a doomsday prepper, an ex-nun, a pair of blind twins with an acute sense of smell, and a devoutly Catholic shelter worker—Olney sets out to save his son. Hilarious and devastating in equal measure, My Darling Boy is a hero’s quest for our time, a testament to families touched by the opioid crisis, and a remarkable achievement from one of our most talented, genre-bending authors.