ESTATE

No.  Estate is a novel.

The events in Estate draw upon personal experience and dozens of stories told by other families. Most everyone will discover some moment that feels cribbed from their family.

To entertain. To quietly inform. To help people understate that in our laboriously-legalistic and hyper-financial society this thing called an “estate” is not just for the wealthy and not just about money and that there are better ways to handle estates. Ways that allow for better goodbyes.

Estate: To my once darling child (in addition to offering a great story) highlights common pitfalls. Step-by-step guides can be found in Estate: The Golden Rules coming in Winter 2026.

It’s hard not to like every character because they are all your darlings, right? If I had to pick, I’d lean towards Ethan.

Estate is real like Andy Weir’s fabulous book The Martian is real. It turns reality into an adventure story—making it more relatable.

Americans spend billions on estate planning every year and yet family goodbyes go so wrong, so often. Estate is trying to help all of us by telling a relatable, understandable story. A cautionary tale.

How does the opening scene describe the relationship between the mother, Holly, and her sons?

Over the course of the novel, how does that relationship evolve through the eyes of Timothy?

What has Holly declared through her will?

Is she sending messages to her children?

How are they fair?

How unfair?

Are they intended to hurt or to be heard or both?

Has Timothy been a dutiful son to Holly, honoring her assertion that “blood is thicker than water?”

What do we know about Holly’s relationship with Matt and Ethan?

Were they dutiful children?

Much of Holly’s sense of self is wrapped up in her stuff.

How does the real and perceived value of that stuff change over the years?

How does that affect Holly?

When they were young, Timothy and his brothers naturally played together.

A childhood memory takes on a prominent role at the end of the story.

What is its significance?

Multiple comparisons are made throughout the story.

What is accomplished by contrasting Timothy’s family and Janice’s?

Holly’s estate and Isaac’s?

And the two Watts brothers with another pair of brothers at the end of the story?

What images did the word “executor” evoke in you before reading the novel?

Did your understanding change as you read the novel?

The relationship between Tim and his brother, Ethan, evolves over the course of the story. How?

How does that dynamic contribute to your understanding of the estate process?

After reading Estate, would you want to be an executor?

After reading Estate, will you change the way you approach your own estate?

Can you help plan the estates of your parents? Grandparents?