The Celebrants by Steven Rowley

A Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises—especially to ourselves—by the bestselling and beloved author of The Guncle.

It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves.

But this reunion is different. They’re not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.

A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of selfhood and the people who keep us going, coupled with Steven Rowley’s signature humor and heart, The Celebrants is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth and the beautiful ways in which friendship helps us celebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.

Published by Putnam
on May 30, 2023

Review:

What would we do without our friends? This year I’ve read so many books that focused on chosen families and friendships and they’ve made me reflect on how thankful and lucky I am to have the friends that I do. I can totally see my friends and I doing something like the friends in this book.

In this case, Naomi, Craig, Marielle, Jordan and Jordy (a gay couple AKA The Jordans) made a pact before they left college that if any of them ever felt alone or that they were struggling they could call on the others and they would all meet up for a living funeral for the one who is struggling. This was all prompted when one of their friends dies before graduation and they wonder if the friend knew how much they meant to the others. The idea of the pact is that the friend who is struggling or feeling down will sit and listen to their friends talk about how much they mean to them to (hopefully) lift them up.

The pact is Marielle’s idea, and she is the first to invoke it after divorcing from her husband. All she’s ever known is how to be a wife and mother. She’s lost, and she needs her friends to pick her up. The next is Naomi, who needs her friends after her parents die in a plane crash and then Craig, who calls on his friends after he is convicted of a crime and has to do prison time.

Years pass without the pact being invoked again, but when one of the Jordans has a recurrence of cancer – this time advanced to where they are unlikely to live – the pact is again invoked.

I really connected with several of the characters and could see myself and several of my friends in them. I think the one character I had the most trouble connecting with was Naomi. I thought she was an awful, controlling bitch of a person, but then, as I got to know her, I understood why. I also saw her growth and I really warmed up to her by the book’s end. I also connected with them because they were all around my age. I understood where they were in life and what they’d gone through. I also understood that as we move into our 40s and 50s we still really don’t have life figured out, even though when we’re younger we think that we’ll definitely be more settled by now. Word to you youngins – that never happens. Life is just about moving forward and trying to keep your head above water. Make the most of it.

Last week I reviewed Lauryn Chamberlain’s book, “Who We Are Know” which was another wonderful book about friendship. In that review, I mentioned that I wished I’d gotten to know the friends when they were in college so I could understand their bond more. Both that book and this book open at the end of the friend’s college years, but I never felt as though it took me a while to settle into the friend group in this case. With The Celebrants, Rowley does a great job of flashing back to college events and moments that defined the group’s friendship, so I felt as though I had a good handle on what brought them together in college and what strengthened their friendship.

This was a quick read – I finished it in two sittings – and one I would definitely recommend to fellow Gen-Xers. After reading The Guncle and now this book, Rowley has earned a spot as an auto-buy author for me. I immediately went and snagged copies of Lucy and the Octopus and The Editor once I finished and added them to my neverending TBR.