Our Country Friends
2021 • 336 pages
Ratings7
Average rating3.2
15
Ratings7
Average rating3.2
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Financial Times, The Washington Post, Time, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, Town & Country, Good Housekeeping, Kirkus Reviews “A perfect novel for these times and all times, the single textual artifact from the pandemic era I would place in a time capsule as a representation of all that is good and true and beautiful about literature.”—Molly Young, The New York Times Eight friends, one country house, and six months in isolation—a novel about love, friendship, family, and betrayal hailed as a “virtuoso performance” (USA Today) and “an homage to Chekhov with four romances and a finale that will break your heart” (The Washington Post) In the rolling hills of upstate New York, a group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months, new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing each character to reevaluate whom they love and what matters most. The unlikely cast of characters includes a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a global dandy with three passports; a Southern flamethrower of an essayist; and a movie star, the Actor, whose arrival upsets the equilibrium of this chosen family. Both elegiac and very, very funny, Our Country Friends is the most ambitious book yet by the author of the beloved bestseller Super Sad True Love Story.
Reviews with the most likes.
Taking place in the first several months of the pandemic, this novel portrays a story of a cast of six friends, old and new, of varying ethnicities, backgrounds, and careers quarantining together on a country estate in upstate New York.
From the outset, the book is written like a classic Russian novel, including many of the same tropes and literary devices. But the setting is so distinctly contemporary, with the uneasiness and paranoia of the virus, the isolation of quarantine, the political polarization, cancel culture, and questions of race and nationality all at the forefront, creating perfect alchemy for intense relationship dynamics.
This is a novel about relationships, personal identity, and American identity. The characters are so beautifully developed, and the writing is truly exquisite and perfectly paced. It's funny, it's self-aware, it's devastating, and it is immersive. I felt so invested in the characters that I may as well have had my own bungalow. I think this book really captures a moment in time with characters and writing that are timeless. I found this book captivating and relatable and truly couldn't put it down.
