The Washington Zoo: A Novel

A hapless divorced father, his incorrigible five-year-old son, and a riotous cast of Washington strivers collide in a comedy of family, class, ambition, and belonging in the nation’s capital.

Morgan Macauley Bannister is a fifty-two-year-old, washed-up Foreign Service officer living in one of DC’s grandest apartment buildings and enduring one of life’s least dignified conditions: divorced fatherhood. His ex-wife Amelia has left him. His beloved son Edward is one disciplinary hearing away from expulsion at the elite Cromwell School. His neighbors are plotting to eject them. Meanwhile, his dream of starting a chess program for poor kids is thwarted by the city’s bureaucracy, and his greatest daily accomplishment is surviving whatever catastrophe Edward creates before lunch.

From iconic settings and characters to zingy dialogue reminiscent of screwball comedies, The Washington Zoo is the funniest and most knowing novel to hail from the nation’s capital in years.

“A delight from start to finish, full of surprise, humor and satisfying twists and turns. A sweet and quietly moral tale. Brava, Mary Eberstadt.”
—Christopher Buckley, author of Thank You for Smoking