Waiting on a Friend

“Waiting on a Friend is a wildly inventive and moving novel that walks a tightrope of emotion with grace and humor. It’s both a portrait of a time and place—New York City in the early 1980s—and a testament to the challenge of carrying on in the face of devastating loss. Natalie Adler has written an astonishingly brilliant debut.”—Patrick Ryan, New York Times bestselling author of Buckeye

“Waiting on a Friend is a fun, sexy, heartbreaking, inventive whirl of a novel. Renata has always seen ghosts, and when her best friend Mark dies, she wants nothing more than to see him again. This story is a beautiful study of friendship, of how loss unmoors us, and how if we keep turning towards love, anything is possible.”—Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

“A charming and innovative debut, Waiting on a Friend is fresh and refreshing, both heartbreaking and uplifting. Such a pleasure to read. Natalie Adler has given us a gem.”—Rabih Alameddine, National Book Award finalist

“A ghost story, a mystery, an ode to the New York City of the 1980s, a requiem for the early victims of AIDS, a celebration of queer friendship . . . This book pulses with life and exuberance amid death and loss. A riveting debut by a writer of tremendous compassion and insight.”—Helen Phillips, author of The Need, longlisted for the National Book Award

“Waiting on a Friend is a breathtaking novel: candid, wickedly funny, deeply generous, and kind. Above all else it is a kind book. The plotting is intricate. The characters, moving and well-drawn. I absolutely loved it and could not stop reading.”—Jiaming Tang, author of Cinema Love, winner of the Lambda Literary Award

“Quirky, queer, poignant, and funny, this book shines with spirit and hope.”—Julia Glass, author of Three Junes, winner of the National Book Award

“A perfect ghost story . . . beautiful, quietly radical, and so heartfelt it hurts.”—Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt

“At turns funny and wise, sexy and sad, paranormal and devastatingly real—this book made me feel more human. Adler has written a tender story of queer love, platonic life partners, and the grief that is inseparable from humanity.”—Molly McGhee, author of Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind

“Adler gets the feeling of the time more right than almost any historical fiction I’ve read about the early-middle height of AIDS in NYC.”—Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

“With resonant character work and hauntingly beautiful care for those remaining and gone, this book will linger long after the last page.”—Gerrard Conley, author of Boy Erased

“By turns biting and generous, funny and devastating, Waiting on a Friend evokes friendship in all its complexity—its resentments, tender obsessions, marvelous intimacies, and supernatural power.”—Beth Morgan, author of A Touch of Jen

“Natalie Adler is bringing one incarnation of the AIDS experience into the present where it all belongs. Someone is listening.”—Sarah Schulman, author of Rat Bohemia and Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP