by Joan Silber
First published 2025
Ivan and his best friend Eddie return from a European trip to the gritty East Village of 1970s New York, where they begin experimenting with drugs. Eddie works as a well-liked local bartender while Ivan drifts through this changing world. One night, Ivan tries heroin with Eddie, but something goes terribly wrong. As Eddie overdoses, Ivan panics and rushes his friend to a packed emergency room. Convinced that Eddie is dying and overwhelmed by fear, Ivan makes a split-second decision that will define the rest of his life: he abandons Eddie at the hospital and flees. This single act of cowardice becomes Ivan's deepest secret, hidden from friends and family for decades. The guilt consumes him as he searches desperately for forgiveness from his unrelenting conscience. But Ivan's choice sends shockwaves through an entire community of people connected to that night in ways they never realize, affecting lives across the decades that follow.
Genres: fiction, drama, addiction, contemporary
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: redemption, unreliable-narrator
Setting: East Village, New York
Period: 1970s
256 pages · Hardcover · Counterpoint
Content warnings: addiction, drug-use, mental-illness