Best known for her portraits of suburban families on the razor’s edge of cracking up, A. M. Homes has been relatively quiet for the last decade. Her new novel, May We Be Forgiven, investigates familiar themes for Homes; it’s about two brothers—a Nixon scholar and a violent hothead—in search of forgiveness. Homes’s blunt, curt language peels away the layers of civility to reveal the dirty, hungry animals hiding underneath. Sounds like the perfect book to take to heart as we all prepare ourselves for the upcoming terror of Thanksgiving. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, www.elliottbaybook.com, 7 pm, free)