May 6, 2024
A Novel for All Seasons—But Maybe Especially This One…
My third novel, Asking for a Friend, is also my first novel that’s set over a long span of time, and ever since it was published, I’ve been reflecting on its seasons. That summery book cover and that it was published on the cusp of fall, and that it opens in December with snow falling outside at the end of an academic term. How sad Jess was during that first February, when she (not unrelated) wouldn’t stop listening to Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” on repeat. The changingness of March when Jess and Clara drag their mattresses outside and wake up dusted with snow, signs of spring ranging from crocuses to frat boys on St. George Street dragging their shitty leather couches outside to drink beer out of red plastic cups. And now that we’re long past crocuses and lilacs are coming into bloom here in downtown Toronto, I’m finally thinking about summer, and what a summer book this is, the rituals these friends return to over and over as the years change everything, and bring them together, push them apart, and back again. That first summer after university when they discover that they both have an affinity for swimming after four years spent in a city that’s easy to forget is on a lake. When Clara returns from abroad and both their lives have changed so changed so much, each with so much to prove to the other, as demonstrated by their eventual blow-up on a weekend getaway. And then the final summer scene, two friends floating, finally, easy together after so many years of pushing against the currents and tides in an effort to become themselves, which is what it feels like to me with my friends in our forties. How I love that scene, and this entire book, and I’m excited to think of readers who’ll be reading it on the dock.
