nIn a provocative novel addressing contemporary immigration by the sharply observant Lionel Shriver, a New York family takes in a Honduran migrant--who may or may not be the innocent paragon she claims to be.n nGloria Bonaventura, a divorced mother of three living with her 26-year-old son Nico in a sprawling house in Brooklyn, decides to participate in a new city program that would pay her to take in a migrant as a boarder. Liberal to the extreme, Gloria is thrilled when sweet, kind, helpful Martine arrives. But Nico is skeptical.

A classic live-at-home Gen Zer with no interest in adulthood, Nico resents any interruption of his hovercraft repose.n nAs the months go by, Martine endears herself to both Nico's sisters, while finding her way into Gloria's heart and even, briefly, Nico's. But as Martine's disturbingly dodgy compatriots begin to show up, Nico conceives a dark twin hostile to both his mother's altruism and the migrant crisis in general--and turns out to be anything but a reliable narrator himself. n nBased loosely on a program New York City Mayor Eric Adams floated but did not initiate, A Better Life is Lionel Shriver at her best: smart, funny, and sensitive to the moral nuances of perhaps the most divisive issue of our times. n