Idlewild: A Novel

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A BEST BOOK OF 2023 ACCORDING TO: NPR * Vanity Fair * The Paris Review * Vox

James Frankie Thomas's novel Idlewild is a darkly funny story of two adults looking back on their intense teenage friendship, refracting the traditional coming-of-age story through queerness, trans identity, and the early days of the social Internet

Idlewild is a small, artsy Quaker high school in Lower Manhattan. Students call their teachers by their first names, there are no grades, and every day begins with 20 minutes of contemplative silence. It is during one of those morning meetings that an airplane hits the Twin Towers.

For two Idlewild outcasts, 9/11 serves as the first day of an intense, 18-month friendship. Fay is a prickly, aloof rich kid who is obsessed with gay men; Nell is a shy, sensitive scholarship student who is obsessed with Fay. The two of them bond fiercely over being the only two openly queer kids at Idlewild and spend their waking hours giddily parsing everything around them for homoerotic subtext. Then, during rehearsals for the fall play, they notice and befriend two sexually ambiguous boys, Theo and Christopher. The pairs become mirrors of one another and drive each other to make mistakes that theyll regret for the rest of their lives.

Looking back on these events as adults, Fay and Nell, who havent spoken in 15 years, trace that fateful school year in alternating perspectives, recalling backstage intrigue, antiwar demonstrations, boisterous teenage performances of identity, and smutty fanfic written over AIM and a shared dial-up connectionas well as the events that were, ultimately, both their making and their unmaking.

Reviews

An achingly precise novel about a very specific stage . . . Idlewilds pleasures arent accessible only to the relatively small group of people who appreciate the nuances between a Blogspot and a LiveJournal. Theres something universal in the books careful excavation of complicated relationships, its compassionate understanding of how friends at that age can love and resent and envy and condescend to each other all at once. * Vanity Fair *
A deeply relatable portrait of queer adolescence . . . With any hope, it will go down in the annals of high-school-theater-kid literary history like Susan Chois Trust Exercise. * Vogue, Best LGBTQ+ Books of the Year (So Far) *
[A] hilarious and sexy debut . . . Equal parts funny and insightful, this is a propulsive exploration of gender identity, sexuality, and self-discovery. * Kirkus *
Idlewild is an outrageously funny novel that is deeply serious about the joys and calamities of friendship. With rare skill and precision, James Frankie Thomas captures all the laughter, the tears, and the ever-evolving inside jokes that cohere between two people who have finally found each other in the strangest place imaginable. This novel made me want to call my oldest friends, only to realize that the numbers are all changed. Idlewild is a major novelmodern and singular. James Frankie Thomas has written a new novel of friendship for a new world. Were all better for it. * Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life and Filthy Animals *
[An] intoxicating debut . . . Thomas astutely captures his characters anxieties as the drama unfolds, and his choice to give them the benefit of hindsight allows for a nuanced and sensitive portrayal of Fays identity formation. Its easy to grow obsessed with this auspicious novel. * Publishers Weekly *
Thomas' Idlewild is a crackling, blindingly funny, thrilling and poignant romp through queer youth, the early 2000s, 9/11 NYC, Quaker schools, and the maddening, heartrending, singular friendship between Fay and Nell that I will never forget. Thomas is a voice and mind we've been waiting for." * Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different *
So smart, so funny, so outrageous, so scary, so bittersweet, and so heartbreaking, James Frankie Thomass Idlewild is a huge, brilliant, coming of age omnibus of adolescent mischief, uproar, and friendship, of exquisite comedy and profound courtesy, of love and resentment, secret crushes and true confessions, all of it suffused with the most knowing and big-hearted insights of adult retrospect. Thomass writing is utterly artful, the story utterly kinetic and headlong and beautifulthe whole thing kept me mesmerized from the first page to the last. Bravo. * Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Tinkers *
James Frankie Thomas black humor debut novel Idlewild follows an intense friendship between queer and trans teens at an artsy Manhattan prep school in a post-9/11 world, for a poignant look at embodiment, betrayal, regret, and hope. * Nylon *
A fever dream of a book, full of longing, regret and hormones. Its reminiscent of such coming-of-age classics as Curtis Sittenfelds Prep and Jeffrey Eugenides The Virgin Suicides yet also wholly original . . . Set against the backdrop of a post-9/11 nation on the verge of war, Idlewildis about the consequences of choices, big and small. * Bookpage *
Idlewild is the funniest, most moving novel Ive read in years, a story of youth and love in all its precocious glory. James Frankie Thomas channels a pair of brilliant, searching friends with precision (complete with research paper citations and fanfic), and invites the reader into its big, hidden heart. * Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins and The Cold Millions *
Idlewild toes the delicate line between darkly biting and empathetic. It's loud and funny and raucous, and yet, it sneaks up on you. With truths about living in the 2000s, the searing pain of looking back, and the absolute madness of having a best friend, James nails the heartbreak of being a theater kid and the humiliation of growing up. * Kiley Reid, author of Such a Fun Age *
A thoughtful, bittersweet rumination on queer adolescence in post-9/11 America. At once caustically irreverent and deadly serious as only teenagers can be, Idlewild is a confident, heartfelt debut. * Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt *
Idlewild is set through the eyes of two best friends from the birth through the death of their relationship, through 9/11 and school musicals and shared queer obsessions. It brilliantly captures the specific quirks of New York City private school teenhood, but also what it's like to be a teen at all--horny, confident, confused, and desperately trying to create yourself. Thomas's writing sparkles, and it's full of such tension and kindness and humor that it's impossible to turn away. * Jaya Saxena, culture critic and author of Crystal Clear *
A very queer and very fresh take on teen friendship . . . exquisite and revolutionary. You wont want to miss this. * Debutiful, Most Anticipated Debut Books of 2023 *
This thrilling debut is a rare exploration of gay trans manhood . . . a book that is funny and characterful, but also intensely sad, full as it is of the question of whether we want to fix, forgive, steal back or abandon our teenage selves . . . The school novel can often feel like a repository of adult grief more than anything else, but Idlewild cares about healing as seriously as it does about pain. * Xtra Magazine *

Author Bio

James Frankie Thomas is a lifelong New Yorker. He attended the City College of New York and the Iowa Writers Workshop. He has worked as a video store clerk, a Shakespeare tutor, and the YA of Yore columnist for the Paris Review; he was most recently a theater critic at Vulture. Idlewild is his first novel.