Ed Tarkington’s debut novel draws you into a small-town American Gothic story of coming-of-age, brotherhood, and family fealty, first love, scandal, and murder. In Virginia in the 1930s, 6-year-old Rocky lives in awe of Paul, his juvenile delinquent older brother, until Paul disappears with his delicate girlfriend Leigh. Nine years later we find a teenage Rocky discovering first love (and first sex) with the neighbors’ daughter, trying to come into his own, discovering his own talents, when Leigh returns, more unstable than ever and full of secrets. Eventually, when their elderly father falls ill, Paul returns to find a town — and a family — that cannot trust him. Just as the brothers begin to reclaim what was lost, a brutal murder threatens everything.

The perfect read for fans of The White Lotus or Succession

“As a novelist, Tarkington is the real deal. I can’t wait to see this story reach a wide audience.”
–Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife

When Charlie Boykin was young, he thought his life with his single mother on the working-class side of Nashville was perfectly fine. But when his mother arranges for him to be admitted as a scholarship student to an elite private school, he is suddenly introduced to what the world can feel like to someone cushioned by money. That world, he discovers, is an almost irresistible place where one can bend–and break–rules and still end up untarnished. As he gets drawn into a friendship with a charismatic upperclassman, Archer Creigh, and an affluent family that treats him like an adopted son, Charlie quickly adapts to life in the upper echelons of Nashville society. Under their charming and alcohol-soaked spell, how can he not relax and enjoy it all–the lack of anxiety over money, the easy summers spent poolside at perfectly appointed mansions, the lavish parties, the freedom to make mistakes knowing that everything can be glossed over or fixed?

But over time, Charlie is increasingly pulled into covering for Archer’s constant deceits and his casual bigotry. At what point will the attraction of wealth and prestige wear off enough for Charlie to take a stand–and will he?

For readers of Wiley Cash, Ann Patchett, and Pat Conroy, The Fortunate Ones is an immersive, elegantly written story that conveys both the seductiveness of this world and the corruption of the people who see their ascent to the top as their birthright.