Henry Henry by Allen Bratton

"Bratton’s electric debut novel transforms Shakespeare into a modern, queer drama that’s as bawdy as it’s sharp." —THE NEW YORK TIMES.

LAUGH NOW. CRY LATER.

It’s London, 2014, and Hal Lancaster, son and heir of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, is in a holding pattern: his mother is dead, his father is dying or remarrying or both, his siblings are fighting, his internship is pointless, and nobody will leave him alone. Everything is as it should be, in other words, and yet nothing is right. 

Over the course of a year of partying, drinking, and flirting to dubious consequence, Hal is tested by brutal family legacies, Catholic guilt, and the terrifying possibility of being loved. All of which is complicated by a pattern of abuse that threatens to chase Hal into adulthood. The House of Lancaster will never be the same. 

Crackling with intelligence and wit, Allen Bratton arrives as a successor to Waugh and St. Aubyn with this lush, stylish novel of family, legacy, and what it means to be alive today.