“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.
