When well-meaning helicopter mom Hannah Webber enrolls her brilliant son and the center of her world, Sam, into the boarding school of her dreams, neither of them is prepared for what awaits: an illicit underworld where decades of privileged conspiracy threaten not only Sam but also their fragile family. The Nine is both a coming-of-age novel and a portrait of an evolving mother-son relationship, steeped in questions of privilege, class, and the definition of success.