Let's Get Back To The Party: A Novel by Zak Salih

(Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book!)

 

about book:

Framed by two of the most significant events in recent LGBTQ history—the Supreme Court’s 2015 marriage equality ruling and the devastating 2016 massacre at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub—LET’S GET BACK TO THE PARTY examines queer culture, generational envy, and the search for belonging through the lens of two childhood friends who reconnect as adults. While Sebastian yearns for a heteronormative life with a partner and a family, and Oscar clings to a romanticized version of the hedonism that preceded him, both search for their place in a rapidly changing world. “LET’S GET BACK TO THE PARTY is a miracle of a book,” says Nick White, author of How to Survive a Summer and Sweet & Low. “A love letter to queer friendship and queer love in a particular moment in time that also, in its sparkling prose and exquisite storytelling, announces the arrival of a major talent.”

It’s just weeks after the historic Supreme Court marriage equality ruling, and all Sebastian Mote wants is to settle down. A high school art history teacher, he envies his queer students their freedom to live openly, as his own youth was lost to fear and shame. When he runs into his childhood friend Oscar Burnham at a wedding in Washington, D.C., he can’t help but see it as a second chance. Now thirty-five, the men haven’t seen each other in over a decade, but Oscar has no interest in their shared history. Instead, he’s too outraged by what he sees as the death of his culture: gay bars overrun with bachelorette parties; men getting married and having babies. Each is drawn into a cross-generational friendship that treads the line between envy and obsession: Sebastian with an openly gay student who has the luxury of holding his boyfriend’s hand in the school hallways, and Oscar with an iconic gay novelist whose life and work represent a fading era. As Sebastian and Oscar reckon with a tension equal parts sexual and political, they must also struggle with what it means to be a gay man today. 

Born too early to have enjoyed the comforts of an “out” adolescence and too late to have any first-hand experiences of the AIDS pandemic, Zak Salih, whose writing has appeared in Crazyhorse, the Chattahoochee Review, the Millions, and the Rumpus, among others, has “spent a lot of time thinking about my community—and where I fit in. While this novel is by no means a roman à clef, I wanted to fictionalize the complexities of what it’s like to belong to this ‘lost generation’ of gay men, and to explore what it means to ‘be’ (and how to ‘be’) queer. I often think the two overarching emotions for many queer people, regrettably, are either rage or sadness. I wanted to see how these potentially self-destructive emotions shaped the way Sebastian and Oscar dealt with broader cultural changes and their own personal histories.” 

“With an artist’s eye for beauty and an art historian’s for detail, Zak Salih excavates the lives of his characters and leaves no stone unturned to ask questions about what it means to be a queer individual, to be a queer community, to be queer alone and with others,” says Matt Ortile, author of The Groom Will Keep His Name. “A book for those of us who simultaneously adore and abhor the pains and ecstasies of social closeness—which is to say it’s a book for us now, us all.”

my thoughts:

Wow. What an interesting and emotional story about being gay in today's society. Oscar and Sebastian are not likable, in fact, they are downright annoying and whiny - however, I couldn't help but get caught up in their story. I wanted to find out if they would figure out what they truly wanted from life and love, instead of wanting what others once had or were now flaunting. Would they come to realize that FOMO is not real life? 

Salih has written a terrific story that explores homosexuality through the eyes of two very different gay men - one wants a domestic life of husband and home, while the other wants to hit up gay bars and party like it's 1999. So, yeah, they are definitely on different pages. However, they both want their freedom to be themselves - out and proud. As they struggle to deal with their wants, desires, and dreams we get to know them and see how they manage to fit in a world that finally seems to accept them. Only, in what way are they accepting them - what identity do they have to fit into now? 

Talk about a fascinating story that is both an emotional rollercoaster and a thought-provoking read at the same time. Loved it! I would happily recommend Zak Salih's novel, Let's Get Back To The Party - check it out!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book!