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A Read with Jenna Pick: A Novel
A Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises—especially to ourselves—by the bestselling and beloved author of The Guncle.
It's been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation from Berkeley when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they've reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living "funerals," celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves.
But this reunion is different. They're not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.
A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of selfhood and the people who keep us going, coupled with Steven Rowley's signature humor and heart, The Celebrants is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth and the beautiful ways in which friendship helps us celebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.
"A superbly crafted narrative about five college friends who make a unique pact... . Beautifully written and culminating in a phenomenally well-realized concluding set-piece, Rowley's tale wonderfully captures how deeply important friendships are... . This is a life-affirming work, one that is both hilarious and richly affecting, with an unforgettable cast of engaging characters that readers will wish they could spend more time with." —Booklist (starred review)
"Rowley offers another winning story of a friend group held together by an unusual bond... . Genuinely heartfelt ... Rowley admirably avoids sentimentality along the way, and there's plenty of fresh and witty dialogue. For anyone needing a reminder about the importance of friendships, this will more than do the trick." —Publishers Weekly
"An updated Big Chill ... hitting many of the same sweet and melancholy notes around aging, death, love, and the shorthand old friends have with each other." —Kirkus Reviews
"The Celebrants is very much about being alive. It's marketed as a modern-day The Big Chill, but it's stirred together with a streak of Gen X independence, a pour of wry humor, some St. Elmo's Fire feels and a loud reminder to live boldly….It's a book that will inspire you to gather your friends and revel in the now." —The Washington Post
"Witty ... A tender reminder of the exigencies of life and the remarkable ability of happy memories to melt the years away." —Shelf Awareness
"The Celebrants made me laugh and cry...and make some overdue phone calls to old friends. A timely examination of why connections matter and a powerful ode to friendship. We should all have such a pact." —Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
"What can stave off the fear of death, or rescue you from one of life's less fatal heartbreaks? Steven Rowley, ever warm and witty, offers up lifelong friendship, and I am inclined to believe him." —Emma Straub, author of All Adults Here and This Time Tomorrow
This information about The Celebrants was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Malina Saval
Steven Rowley has worked as a freelance writer, newspaper columnist, and screenwriter. Originally from Portland, Maine, he is a graduate of Emerson College. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his boyfriend and their dog. Lily and the Octopus is his first novel, The Editor is his second.
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