Town & Country
A Novel
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A 2025 MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: Town & Country • LGBTQReads • Kirkus Reviews
“Refreshingly thoughtful...Town & Country is never short of engaging.” —The Washington Post
A “big-hearted and true” (Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winner) debut novel set in a small rural town amid a congressional race that forces the candidates, their families, and a clique of gay second homeowners to confront lies, betrayals and shifting allegiances.
The trendy rural town of Griffin has become a popular destination for weekenders and the city’s second homeowners, but now a congressional race in this swing district is highlighting tensions between life-long residents and new arrivals. The campaign pits local pub owner and town supervisor Chip Riley against the wealthy young carpetbagger Paul Banks, challenging the social and political loyalties of their families and friends with lasting repercussions.
Diane Riley, Chip’s wife, is a religiously devout real estate agent who feels conflicted about selling second homes—including to Paul and his much older husband, Stan. Their elder son, Joe, is grieving the recent overdose death of his best friend and spiraling into drugs himself, while their younger son, Will, is a newly out college student seduced by the decadent lifestyle of Paul’s circle.
Meanwhile, Stan Banks uses the race to give purpose to the pain of losing a loved one to AIDS, even as he begins to doubt Paul’s readiness for office. And within their growing fraternity of city transplants, Eric Larimer finds unexpected connection with a local farmer that opens his eyes to the region’s complexity as Leon Rogers, still reeling from a divorce, becomes increasingly desperate to infiltrate the Banks’s exclusive crew.
Spanning six months from Memorial Day to Election Day, Town & Country paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of a community in flux. For readers of Fredrick Backman and Jen Beagin, this “powerful and extremely well-written book” (Colum McCann, National Book Award winner) asks the essential and timeless questions: What makes a home, and what do we owe our neighbors?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Schaefer debuts with an engrossing satire of city dwellers encroaching on a small town. The novel follows two congressional candidates vying to represent a largely rural district centered around the town of Griffin in the Munsee River Valley, a thinly veiled Hudson Valley. One is lifelong resident Chip Riley, owner of an old-school bar called the Lucky Buck. His challenger, Paul Banks, is one of the many gays (nicknamed "Duffels" by the locals for their weekend bags) who have recently purchased second homes in the area and registered to vote there, recognizing it as a place where "our vote actually matters," in the words of one of Paul's friends. Schaefer dramatizes the quickly changing town's contradictions in subplots following Chip's sons Joe, who recently lost his best friend to an overdose, and Will, who's recently come out as gay and finds his loyalties divided between his father and the allure of being seen as the Duffels' "young, pretty thing," especially after Chip makes him deputy campaign manager. At times, the brothers and the candidates feel like ciphers for larger issues, but as Election Day draws closer, the stakes get higher and the plot thickens, as each character's motives are cast into doubt. The author has his finger on the pulse in this appealing story of a battleground district. Agents: Tia Ikemoto and Andrianna deLone, CAA.
