Four Squares

From the beloved author of The Old Place comes a tender, funny, and fresh novel about a gay writer in New York City whose life is irrevocably altered, and then again thirty years later. In 1992, on his thirtieth birthday, Artie Anderson meets the man who will change his life. Artie spends his days at a tedious advertising job, finding relief in the comfort of his friends and the corner of New York City he can call his own, even as the queer community is still being ravaged by HIV. But when his birthday celebration brings Artie and his friends to his favorite bar, a chance encounter with Abe, an uptight lawyer and Artie’s opposite in almost every way, pushes Artie to want, and to ask for, more for himself. Thirty years later, Artie is stunned when Halle and Vanessa, Abe’s daughter and ex-wife, announce they are moving across the country. Artie has built a lovely, if small, life, but their departure makes Artie realize that he might be lonelier than he previously thought. When a surprising injury pushes Artie into the hands of GALS, the local center for queer seniors, a rambunctious group of elders insist on taking him under their wing. Alternating between both timelines, Four Squares is an intimate look at what it means to find community at any age and a touching meditation on the aftershocks of both love and grief. With humor and compassion, it honors the enduring power of queer friendship, its history, and how essential it is to keep those stories alive.