First published 2025
Ryan and his five friends have been inseparable since childhood, but high school in early 2000s Chicago tests everything they thought they knew about loyalty and growing up. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan erupt and protests fill the streets, Ryan falls hard for Jana while struggling to maintain that connection. He and his friends discover alcohol as an escape from the weight of a changing world. The narrator watches helplessly as college, military service, and adult responsibilities pull the group in different directions. Some form new relationships and start families. Others drift away entirely. The bonds that once seemed unbreakable begin to fracture under the pressure of shifting allegiances to friends, lovers, and country. Through memories that jump between high school hallways and early adulthood, the story follows these young men as they grapple with first love, addiction, and what it means to be American during wartime. At its heart, this is about the disasters we survive together and apart.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, coming-of-age, contemporary, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: character-driven, emotionally-resonant, introspective, melancholic, nostalgic
Tropes: found-family, friends-to-estranged, non-linear-narrative, unreliable-memory
Setting: Chicago, Iraq, Afghanistan
Period: Early 2000s, High school era, Early adulthood
208 pages · Paperback · Tin House
Content warnings: addiction, alcohol-abuse, war