Critical Praise

“Sophie McManus…is an incisive, surprising prose stylist, and her debut novel heralds an exciting new talent with an old soul.”

—Christine Schutt, author of PROSPEROUS FRIENDS

“Sophie McManus’s stunning debut novel revisits American money and brilliantly reconfigures the tradition of fiction about the very rich. What is truly rich about this first novel is the language --- lucid, quick, accessible, and yet almost cubist in its syntactical swerves and surprising word choices --- with which McManus invests the inner lives of the Somners, mother, son and daughter-in-law, three unforgettable and finally poignant protagonists.” 

—Jaimy Gordon, author of LORD OF MISRULE

“McManus writes with brio and with humor and with immense sympathy. The virtuosity in these pages is astonishing, but just as astonishing is this novel’s abiding heart.”

—Joshua Henkin, author of THE WORLD WITHOUT YOU and MATRIMONY

“A big, chewy novel written with comic panache and an infectious tenderness toward the blunders of its heroes. THE UNFORTUNATES is both a mirror on the income inequality of the current moment and a social novel in the old, grand plotty mode: voracious for detail and punctuated by gasp-inducing turns of fate. Its subjects are money and the people unfortunate enough to have it. Who knew the rich deserved so much to be pitied?” 

—Salvatore Scibona, author of THE END

“In finely etched detail as sharp as shards of glass, Sophie McManus reveals in THE UNFORTUNATES the corrupting power of wealth and the myriad ways it infects individual lives and families. As relevant as it is compulsively readable, this wonderfully composed triptych of Somners --- Cecilia, the aging matriarch; her troubled son, George; and his outsider wife, Iris --- functions as the heart of this novel about the potential monstrousness of privilege, and the responsibility of facing one’s legacy.” 

—Amanda Coplin, author of THE ORCHARDIST