Among Friends
A Novel
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3.4 • 46 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER AND THE ECONOMIST
NAMED A FAVORITE FICTION READ OF THE YEAR BY NPR
“Stylish and assured….Ebbott’s prose is honed and aphoristic, recalling the work of James Salter and John Cheever…The sentences go down easy...but there is substance beneath the gleaming surfaces.” —Washington Post
“Acutely perceptive and beautifully written…A living thing...A huge achievement.” —The Financial Times
"Finely calibrated...[A]s discerning as it is pitiless." —The New Yorker
What begins as celebration gives way to betrayal, shattering the trust between two families
It’s an autumn weekend at a comfortable New York country house where two deeply intertwined families have gathered to mark the host’s fifty-second birthday.
Together, the group forms an enviable portrait of middle age. The wives and husbands have been friends for over thirty years, their teenage daughters have grown up together, and the dinners, games, and rituals forming their days all reflect the rich bonds between them.
This weekend, however, something is different. An unforeseen curdling of envy and resentment will erupt in an unspeakable act, the aftermath of which exposes treacherous fault lines upon which they have long dwelt.
Written with hypnotic elegance and molten precision, and announcing the arrival of a major literary talent, Hal Ebbott’s Among Friends examines betrayal within the sanctuary of a defining relationship, as well as themes of class, marriage, friendship, power, and the things we tell ourselves to preserve our finely made worlds.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In his sparkling debut novel, Hal Ebbott cleverly unravels the facade of upper-middle-class contentment surrounding two close families. In an idyllic summer house, Emerson, his wife, Retsy, and their daughter, Sophie, welcome his best friend, Amos, and his family, wife Claire and daughter Anna, for a weekend birthday celebration. What transpires, openly and in the shadows, punctures the placid lives of the participants like Queequeg’s harpoon. Like his characters, the author comes at things from the side, eschewing facts for vague interpretations. These are friendships among the privileged—doctors and lawyers raised to believe that their place in the world is assured. Their reaction to the foundational cracks reveals each one’s interpretation of a reality they prefer remain undisturbed. Ebbott’s gaze is comfortable in this insular world while also bristling at its limitations. Among Friends turns its characters’ lives inside out to expose the deeply uncomfortable underpinnings propping them up.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ebbott focuses his gaze on two wealthy couples in his elegant debut. Unscrupulous lawyer Emerson, who's married to dissatisfied Retsy, has been friends with psychiatrist Amos since high school, and with Amos's physician wife Claire since childhood. Their 16-year-old daughters, Anna and Sophie, have been thrown together for years but are growing apart. One October, Emerson invites Amos and his family for a weekend at his country house outside New York City. The weekend's peace is disturbed first by minor incidents—a twisted ankle, a broken bottle, a joke taken as an insult—and later by a horrifying betrayal. Months later, one character, whose life has been shattered by the events of the weekend, reveals a secret to the others, who must then decide how to handle the revelation. In refined prose that feels like a throwback to mid-20th-century psychological realism, Ebbott lays bare the many ways in which the families harm each other as each character seeks to protect the status quo of their "smooth, edgeless life." The novel's hothouse atmosphere can feel a bit static—the characters appear to exist outside of time and of any society but their own, as if released from the amber of a John Cheever story—but it's also the novel's greatest strength, as Ebbott conjures up a world where mental machinations trump morality. It's an alluring accomplishment.
Customer Reviews
Surprising ending.
Loved this book.
Why did anyone give this a good review
All that purple, confused prose—a clear turnoff. The author tries too hard. I gave up, opened a James Salter book and thought, now this flows, this is engaging.