So Old, So Young

Ginder (Let’s Not Do That Again) follows five college friends as they approach middle age in his funny and poignant latest. In 2007, two years after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Richie’s friends join him at his crowded New Year’s Eve party in Lower Manhattan. From there, the story unfolds in a series of occasions over the next decade, including a Cancún wedding in 2014 for friends of Mia’s, Adam’s Labor Day party in the Hamptons in 2018, and Sasha and Theo’s 2022 Halloween party in New Jersey. Along the way, the reader learns about Adam’s longtime crush on Richie, Marco’s on-and-off relationship with Mia before settling down with another woman and starting a family, Richie’s increasingly destructive dependence on booze and cocaine, Sasha’s difficult pregnancy and labor, and much more. The novel runs on its deliciously witty dialogue, as when Mia tells Richie’s new roommate in 2007 that living with him “is liable to get you on the FBI’s Most Wanted list,” but Ginder counterpoints the humor with unsparing wisdom, as when he writes of the epiphany that Mia has in Cancun: “Things would change little by little, until they didn’t recognize each other at all.” Throughout, Ginder effectively portrays the recurring joy of lasting friendships along with the pain of growing apart. It’s a triumph. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management. (Feb.)