Condescending Bastard: A Novel of One Man, One Family, and the Cost of Good Manners. (The Callahan Family Saga Book 2)

His sister said it to his face: “You condescending bastard. And right. Which is worse.”

At the reading of his mother’s will, Thomas Callahan is handed a sealed envelope — left for him alone, marked with his father’s initials — and he cannot bring himself to open it. Ruth Callahan spent a lifetime telling her family the truth at full volume. Her son learned the opposite lesson: manage everyone, explain everything, and never say the thing itself.

So instead of opening the envelope, Thomas investigates. He will establish the exact minute his mother died. He will determine whether she was still alive when he spoke his wedding vows. He will get the order of events right, and then — surely — he will know how to feel about all of it.

A wife who has begun measuring his silences against his mother’s. A daughter who has stopped telling him things. A sister who has been keeping a list of her own. And the clocks in his mother’s house, which will not agree with one another, or with him.

Condescending Bastard is a novel about the cost of being the man who holds a family together by holding himself above it — and what it takes for that man to finally stay in the room.

His mother was certain she was right. He is certain he is above.

It is not the insult they think it is.

Book Two of The Callahan Family Saga — a standalone companion to Self-Righteous Bitch. Each novel stands on its own. This one is Thomas’s trial.