The Celebrants

March 27, 2023
Rowley (The Guncle) offers another winning story of a friend group held together by an unusual bond. Five friends at U.C. Berkeley are reeling from another friend’s overdose death. Just before graduating in 1995, they make a pact. Each of them may ask for a “living funeral” in a moment of crisis, and their friends will show up to celebrate their life. After college, they drift apart. Then, in 2013, Marielle Holland, now living in Washington, D.C., sounds the alarm, flailing through an impending divorce. In 2016, Naomi Ito’s parents die in a plane crash, pushing the strident Naomi, now a music executive, to drag them all to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. In 2018, Craig Scheffler, who relies on humor to shield his emotions, is facing prison for art fraud when the friends ambush him for his own “funeral” in New York City. Finally in 2023, Jordy Tosic and Jordan Vargas, now husbands in New York City, activate the pact because Jordan’s cancer is back. Faced with an impending real funeral, the quintet, now 50, gathers a final time for a genuinely heartfelt conclusion. Rowley admirably avoids sentimentality along the way, and there’s plenty of fresh and witty dialogue. For anyone needing a reminder about the importance of friendships, this will more than do the trick. Agent: Rob Wiesbach, Rob Wiesbach Creative. (May)Correction: An earlier version of this review misstated the city two characters live in.

April 1, 2023
A privileged but somewhat diverse group of friends support each other in a profound way through their early to middle adulthood. Meeting first as misfit transfer students in their sophomore year at Berkeley, Marielle, Naomi, Craig, the Jordans (a gay couple), and Alec quickly become family to each other. But Alec, the wildest, dies of an overdose two weeks before graduation, leaving the others bereft and confused. After Alec's funeral, Marielle convinces them to join in an unusual pact to celebrate each other: At any time of their choosing, each can call on the others to gather for their own "funeral" during which they get to be celebrated, loved, and supported while still alive. The book covers the "funerals" of Marielle, Naomi, and Craig at different crisis points in their lives over the next 30 years. Hanging over the proceedings are two things, one of which is always present for the characters: the trauma of Alec's death. The other is the novel's present-day framing, in which one of the Jordans has terminal prostate cancer, and his husband (now Jordy for distinction) is nudging him to trigger the pact and tell the group. There is an updated Big Chill quality to it all, hitting many of the same sweet and melancholy notes around aging, death, love, and the shorthand old friends have with each other. This particular group's lingua franca is quite tart--they trade in jabs, cynicism, and intellectualism--but over time it becomes clear how much they value each other, even when old secrets get revealed and dynamics shift. Rowley peppers biographical details evenly through the book, making it initially hard to get a good grasp on the friends' individual personalities, though they come into better focus over time. Occasionally their dialogue and misadventures are downright hilarious. A touch wiseacre but more wise.

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Starred review from April 1, 2023
Rowley's (The Guncle, 2021) latest is a superbly crafted narrative about five college friends who make a unique pact. After losing their close friend, Alec, at a young age while at Berkeley, Marielle, Craig, Jordan, Jordy (collectively "The Jordans"), and Naomi agree that they will all have the right to invoke a living funeral. At any point, each can call on the rest to come to a place of their choosing and celebrate their life while they are still alive. Each section is dedicated to one "funeral" and often provides stories of the group's younger selves to explain why they invoke the pact when they do. As the pact morphs and shifts into a lifeline in moments of crisis--whether it's divorce, death, sickness, or criminality--past secrets are revealed, and their bonds are both tested and strengthened. Beautifully written and culminating in a phenomenally wellrealized resonant set-piece, Rowley's tale wonderfully captures how deeply important friendships are. Like Ron Currie Jr.'s Everything Matters! (2009) this is a lifeaffirming work, one that is both hilarious and richly affecting, with an unforgettable cast of engaging characters that readers will wish they could spend more time with.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.