At the heart of Union Atlantic lies a test of wills between a young banker, Doug Fanning, and a retired schoolteacher, Charlotte Graves, whose two dogs have begun to speak to her. When Doug builds an ostentatious mansion on land that Charlotte's grandfather donated to the town of Finden, Massachusetts, she determines to oust him in court.

As a senior manager of Union Atlantic bank, a major financial conglomerate, Doug is embroiled in the company's struggle to remain afloat. It is Charlotte's brother, Henry Graves, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, who must keep a watchful eye on Union Atlantic and the entire financial system.

Drawn into Doug and Charlotte's intensifying conflict is Nate Fuller, a troubled high-school senior who unwittingly stirs powerful emotions in each of them. 

Written over the course of five years and finished the week that Lehman Brothers' collapse set off the Wall Street panic of 2008, it portrays the gilded age of the first decade of the 21st century and the conflicts over class, corporate power, and personal identity that shape contemporary life.

Early comments on the book:

 "The first great novel of the new century that takes the new century as its subject...It's big and ambitious, like novels used to be.  It's about us, now.  All of us."
     —Esquire

"At the Frankfurt book fair, this year's hot read is a first novel by American Adam Haslett, author of the award-winning collection of short stories You Are Not a Stranger Here. 'It's a kind of parable for our time,' reports our Frankfurt spy. 'I think it could become a defining book.'"

"Adam Haslett's page-turner of a debut novel ranges brilliantly from the Strait of Hormuz to the outskirts of Boston to the belly of the financial beast—New York's Federal Reserve. It explains to me, with humor and style and generosity, how we became America in the year 2009. A must read."
   —Gary Shteyngart

“Adam Haslett has the rarest of talents: the ability to combine a powerful intelligence with storytelling that is both elegant and suspenseful, and to break your heart in the process. Union Atlantic is a masterful portrait of our age.”
   —Malcolm Gladwell