NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER AND THE ECONOMIST NAMED A FAVORITE FICTION
READ OF THE YEAR BY NPR “Stylish and assured….Ebbott’s prose is honed and aphoristic
recalling the work of James Salter and John Cheever…The sentences go down easy...but there is
substance beneath the gleaming surfaces.” —Washington Post “Acutely perceptive and
beautifully written…A living thing...A huge achievement.” —The Financial Times "Finely
calibrated...[A]s discerning as it is pitiless." —The New Yorker What begins as celebration
gives way to betrayal shattering the trust between two families It’s an autumn weekend at a
comfortable New York country house where two deeply intertwined families have gathered to mark
the host’s fifty-second birthday. Together the group forms an enviable portrait of middle
age. The wives and husbands have been friends for over thirty years their teenage daughters
have grown up together and the dinners games and rituals forming their days all reflect the
rich bonds between them. This weekend however something is different. An unforeseen curdling
of envy and resentment will erupt in an unspeakable act the aftermath of which exposes
treacherous fault lines upon which they have long dwelt. Written with hypnotic elegance and
molten precision and announcing the arrival of a major literary talent Hal Ebbott’s Among
Friends examines betrayal within the sanctuary of a defining relationship as well as themes of
class marriage friendship power and the things we tell ourselves to preserve our finely
made worlds.
