The Greatest Possible Good

Shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award

How much should one person give to make the world a better place? How much can one family take?

The Greatest Possible Good, the hilarious and thought-provoking new novel from the Somerset Maugham and British Book Award-winning Ben Brooks.

'Brooks is a frightening young talent.' Tim Key

'I love Ben Brooks.' Matt Haig

'You’ll not forget the Candlewicks once you meet them! This splendid, wry satire is about a wealthy family, self-important and confident in their morality, whose blithe and bumptious existences are thrown into disarray when their father clandestinely decides to give all their money to charity, and so (in their opinions) completely destroys their lives. Droll and all-too-real.' LitHub

'A warmhearted tragicomedy about what it means to live a good life.' People Magazine

‘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

'I’d like you to imagine that you’re walking to work one day and you come upon a child drowning in a pool of water. But imagine that someone refused to jump in after the child on the grounds that it would ruin his three-hundred-pound pair of John Lobb loafers. We’d consider them utterly immoral, would we not?’

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 become 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.

‘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

‘Ben Brooks is a writer who genuinely excites me.’ Colin Herd, 3:AM Magazine