The Celebrants

by Steven Rowley

A decades-old pact offers a group of college friends the chance to throw each other "living funerals," in the next poignant and humorous novel by the bestselling author of The Guncle. The night after one of their own is tragically taken from them, a group of five college friends form a pact: a promise to reunite in their hours of need to throw each other’s funerals while they’re alive and well as a reminder that life is worth living, and living well – if not for them then to honor their late friend. Now, twenty-eight years into the hard-worn lines of adulthood, their “funerals” serve to remind them of all the opportunities in life they’ve missed. But when one member of the old gang receives a bracing diagnosis, the pact takes on new meaning, and each friend is forced to confront old secrets, and weigh their now-middle-age lives against the idealistic dreams of their youth. A deeply honest tribute to 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 all the beautiful ways in which friendship can transcend our deepest losses.