Following the death of her worthy liberal parents, Corlis McCrea moves back into her family's grand Reconstruction mansion in North Carolina, willed to all three siblings. Her timid younger brother has never left home. When her bullying black-sheep older brother moves into “his” house as well, it's war.

Each heir wants the house. Yet to buy the other out, two siblings must team against one. Just as in girlhood, Corlis is torn between allying with the decent but fearful youngest and the iconoclastic eldest, who covets his legacy to destroy it. “A Perfectly Good Family” is a stunning examination of inheritance, literal and psychological: what we take from our parents, what we discard, and what we are stuck with, like it or not.

Lionel Shriver's novels include the National Book Award finalist “So Much for That, ” the “New York Times” bestseller “The Post-Birthday World, ” and the international bestseller “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” Her journalism has appeared in the “Guardian, ” the “New York Times, ” the “Wall Street Journal, ” and many other publications. She lives in London and Brooklyn, New York.