A Dual Inheritance

Plot

For readers of Rules of Civility and The Marriage Plot, Joanna Hershon’s A Dual Inheritance is an engrossing novel of passion, friendship, betrayal, and class—and their reverberations across generations. Autumn 1962: Ed Cantowitz and Hugh Shipley meet in their final year at Harvard. Ed is far removed from Hugh’s privileged upbringing as a Boston Brahmin, yet his drive and ambition outpace Hugh’s ambivalence about his own life. These two young men form an unlikely friendship, bolstered by a fierce shared desire to transcend their circumstances. But in just a few short years, not only do their paths diverge—one rising on Wall Street, the other becoming a kind of global humanitarian—but their friendship ends abruptly, with only one of them understanding why. Can a friendship define your view of the world? Spanning from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the present-day stock market collapse, with locations as diverse as Dar es Salaam, Boston, Shenzhen, and Fishers Island, A Dual Inheritance asks this question, as it follows not only these two men, but the complicated women in their vastly different lives. And as Ed and Hugh grow farther and farther apart, they remain uniquely—even surprisingly—connected. Advance praise for A Dual Inheritance “A Dual Inheritance is a big, captivating, multigenerational sweep of a romance, ranging from Africa to China to New England’s blue-blooded enclaves. With deftness and swagger, Joanna Hershon spins the intertwining of two Harvard men’s lives into a searching exploration of class and destiny in late-twentieth-century America.”—Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad “Joanna Hershon has written a vivid, elegant novel that deftly roams the decades and the globe in telling a story about friendship, family, and the murky area in between. A Dual Inheritance is a rich and satisfying read.”—Maggie Shipstead, author of Seating Arrangements “Simultaneously a riveting story of two very different families and a portrait of the United States through the boom and bust decades . . . Think of Anne Tyler and Tom Wolfe, both. This marvelous novel is a mix of heartache and history. I just couldn’t stop reading, and when it was over I felt sad the experience had ended.”—Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver “Joanna Hershon is further evidence of a pleasing trend set off by Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom and Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot: big books about American politics, social customs, and family dynamics that seek to update and relocate the brilliantly compelling English nineteenth-century novel. I envy and admire Hershon’s ability to so convincingly display the complex intimacies of multigenerational love and friendship. This is a book to lose yourself in.”—Antonya Nelson, author of Bound “Wise, heartfelt, and beautifully written, A Dual Inheritance is about the big things: love, work, family, money. It earns its ambitions and is astonishingly good. I just loved this novel.”—Joshua Henkin, author of The World Without You “A Dual Inheritance is deep and beautiful and humane. It has a massive scope and a social conscience, and yet is also incredibly intimate. What an accomplished novel; it truly took my breath away.”—Jennifer Gilmore, author of The Mothers