Let's Get Back to the Party, by Zak Salih

I am so thrilled to have the chance to share this book with you. Let’s Get Back to the Party, by Zak Salih, is a phenomenal exploration of culture that explores the impact of changing laws on different generations, the ways we love and how we live, and captivates with an exquisite, sharp narrative and well drawn characters that share their entire worlds with us readers.

Here’s the synopsis:

“It' is 2015, weeks after the Supreme Court marriage equality ruling, and all Sebastian Mote wants is to settle down. A high school art history teacher, newly single and desperately lonely, he envies his queer students their freedom to live openly the youth he lost to fear and shame.

When he runs into his childhood friend Oscar Burnham at a wedding in Washington, D.C., he can’t help but see it as a second chance. Now thirty-five, the men haven’t seen each other in more than a decade. But Oscar has no interest in their shared history, nor in the sense of belonging Sebastian craves. Instead, he’s outraged by what he sees as the death of gay culture: bars overrun with bachelorette parties, friends coupling off and having babies. For Oscar, conformity isn’t peace, it’s surrender.

While Oscar and Sebastian struggle to find their place in a rapidly changing world, each is drawn into a cross-generational friendship that treads the line between envy and obsession: Sebastian with one of his students, Oscar with an older icon of the AIDS era. And as they collide again and again, both men must reckon not just with one another but with themselves.”

I was incredibly impressed with this novel and with Salih’s mastery of language and story. It’s heart rending and so well told. Sebastian and Oscar’s choices, circumstances, opinions, values, and lives, prompt empathy, critical thought, and hold nothing back. It’s a brilliant honesty of feeling that I was so grateful for.

I won’t soon forget this book and am so eager to see what Salih writes next. Let’s Get Back to the Party is out Tuesday February 16th, 2021, wherever books are sold.

I’m giving away a finished copy of this book over on my Instagram account if you’re interested (open from 2/15-2/17 at midnight PST, US entries only this time)

**Thank you so much to Algonquin books for the gifted review copy, all opinions are my own.