Novelist Lee Cole joins Tom’s Book Club to discuss his novel Fulfillment, a sharp and quietly powerful story about family, class and the fault lines of contemporary American life.

The novel follows half-brothers Emmett and Joel, who couldn’t be more different: Emmett is a single, blue-collar warehouse worker, while Joel is a married academic and published writer. When the two find themselves back together in their Kentucky family home for the first time in years, old tensions begin to surface — just as Joel’s wife, Alice, starts to yearn for a different kind of life.

In this extended conversation, Cole discusses the importance of humour in his work, writing about the textures and tensions of contemporary America, and the challenge of stepping back from the analytical mindset and actually living in the moment.

Fulfillment is out now in paperback.

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