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Ben Brooks
The Greatest Possible Good
The Greatest Possible Good
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The hilarious, thought-provoking new novel from the Somerset Maugham and British Book Award-winning Ben Brooks.
‘A sharp-witted tragicomedy about money, morality, and a family teetering on the brink. A splendidly funny novel.’ Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street.
SUSAN'S REVIEW
PUBLISHER REVIEW
What might it take for Arthur Candlewick, an obscenely wealthy husband and father, to donate most of the family fortune to worthy charities? It’s pending three days and nights in an abandoned mine shaft, with nothing to alleviate his fearful ordeal except a bottle of mediocre wine, his son’s stash of drugs and, most crucially, his daughter’s copy of a book called Effective Altruism. What follows Arthur’s radical moral transformation is a fracturing of his family. His wife Yara is sure he’s gone mad; son Emil withdraws even more into himself; and activist daughter Evangeline, known for throwing fake blood at political protests, resents being upstaged by her newly altruistic father.
Award-winning British writer Ben Brooks’ new novel The Greatest Possible Good charts the fall out in the lives of the Candlewicks over ten turbulent years. Its central moral question, which it repeats for comic effect, is the philosopher Peter Singer’s famous 1972 thought experiment called “the shallow pond.” Singer asks: if you saw a toddler drowning in a pond, would you choose not to save the child because your expensive new shoes would be ruined, and because the rescue would make you late for work? Most people, Singer assumes, would choose to save the child, partly on the assumption that the child’s life is “worth” more than the obstacles to the rescue, and partly because your sacrifices are minimal. Singer then applies this conclusion to the act of donating even a relatively small amount of money to charity: he argues that if we make small sacrifices like not seeing a movie or buying a new pair of shoes, we can effectively save a child from dying of starvation or disease. Put differently, and in a way that must surely give us pause: if we choose not to donate, then we are morally responsible for the death of a child.
The Greatest Possible Good explores Singer’s moral argument with both a delightful use of humour and touches of pathos. The novel’s philosophical reflections are neither new nor profound, but it will make you laugh, and against all the odds, sympathise with Brooks’ deeply flawed characters. If you enjoyed Paul Murray’s Booker short-listed novel The Bee Sting, you will appreciate Brooks’ skilful blend of the comic and the poignant, and his entertaining, thoughtful creation of a dysfunctional family.
PUBLISHER REVIEW
Arthur Candlewick spends three days in a disused mineshaft with only his son’s drug stash, a book on the concept of ‘effective altruism’ and a bottle of medium-priced Bordeaux for company. When he emerges, he has made the life-changing decision to become a good man.
Deciding to sell the family timber business and give away his wealth to charity, Arthur’s family becomes convinced that he has lost his mind.
His university-bound daughter, Evangeline, wants to change the world but perhaps not at the cost of her own privileged life.
His son, Emil, good at maths and not much else, becomes more distant than ever.
And his wife, Yara, who arrives at airports four hours early and fears that AI and climate change will leave her children unemployed, just wants the doctor to run another brain scan on her husband.
Incisive, hilarious and unflinchingly human, The Greatest Possible Good asks fundamental questions about what it means to live a good life while introducing the world to one of the great families of contemporary literature.
'Brooks is a frighteningly young talent.' Tim Key
'I love Ben Brooks.' Matt Haig
‘Ben Brooks is a magical imp who pumps out dark nuggets of poetry and makes you snort with laughter.’ Noel Fielding
‘Brooks has the timing of a genius stand-up comic.’ Richard Milward
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