Literature & Fiction
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The Celebrants
A TODAY Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick
A Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises-especially to ourselves-by the bestselling and beloved author of The Guncle.
It's been a minute-or five years-since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they've reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living "funerals," celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living-that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves.
But this reunion is different. They're not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.
A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of 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 the beautiful ways in which friendship helps us celebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.
A Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises-especially to ourselves-by the bestselling and beloved author of The Guncle.
It's been a minute-or five years-since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they've reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living "funerals," celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living-that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves.
But this reunion is different. They're not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.
A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of 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 the beautiful ways in which friendship helps us celebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.
Editorial Reviews
An Indie Next List Pick
A LibraryReads Hall of Fame Pick
One of The New York Times Book Review Summer Books 2023
One of Buzzfeed's Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of 2023
One of Electric Lit's Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of Spring 2023
One of Nerd Daily's Most Anticipated Books of 2023
One of Entertainment Weekly's Best New Books for Spring
One of Real Simple's Must-Read Books of Summer
One of Today.com's Most Ancitipated Books of 2023
One of New York Post's Best New Books
One of Reader's Digest's Most Anticipated Summer Books
One of BookRiot's Best New Books of May
"From the author of The Guncle comes the ultimate story of friend goals. . . . Throughout this ode to good friends is lots of clever dialogue and some genuinely funny moments." -BookRiot
"Rowley has created such living, breathing characters that the heartbreaking truth-this is a book about a character's impending death-is truly heartbreaking. . . . I kept Kleenex in business while reading this book, but I also laughed a whole lot. It's the sort of heartwarming story that makes me want to ring up my pals for a much-needed visit." -Reader's Digest (Editor's Pick)
"This heartwarming coming of age story follows a group of five college friends all about to enter their 50s….Alternating between the present day gathering and previous 'funerals' from past years, you'll grow attached to these characters…and when you finish, you'll want to go hug your BFFs." -The Ski...
A LibraryReads Hall of Fame Pick
One of The New York Times Book Review Summer Books 2023
One of Buzzfeed's Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of 2023
One of Electric Lit's Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of Spring 2023
One of Nerd Daily's Most Anticipated Books of 2023
One of Entertainment Weekly's Best New Books for Spring
One of Real Simple's Must-Read Books of Summer
One of Today.com's Most Ancitipated Books of 2023
One of New York Post's Best New Books
One of Reader's Digest's Most Anticipated Summer Books
One of BookRiot's Best New Books of May
"From the author of The Guncle comes the ultimate story of friend goals. . . . Throughout this ode to good friends is lots of clever dialogue and some genuinely funny moments." -BookRiot
"Rowley has created such living, breathing characters that the heartbreaking truth-this is a book about a character's impending death-is truly heartbreaking. . . . I kept Kleenex in business while reading this book, but I also laughed a whole lot. It's the sort of heartwarming story that makes me want to ring up my pals for a much-needed visit." -Reader's Digest (Editor's Pick)
"This heartwarming coming of age story follows a group of five college friends all about to enter their 50s….Alternating between the present day gathering and previous 'funerals' from past years, you'll grow attached to these characters…and when you finish, you'll want to go hug your BFFs." -The Ski...
Readers Top Reviews
Megan G
The Celebrants by Steven Rowley Narrated by: Steven Rowley Rating: 4 stars Pub Date: 5/30 The Celebrants is a heartwarming and sometimes hilarious novel about friends who come together to celebrate life, love, and loss. The book follows Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle, a group of college friends who reunite every few years in Big Sur to attend each other's "funerals." These gatherings serve as reminders of their meaningful relationships and keep them connected through the years. This story is full of humor, heart, and wisdom. While it’s a lot more heartbreaking than I realized (I cried a record number of times), Rowley's writing is funny and poignant, and he has a gift for creating memorable characters and stories. As each friend calls upon the pact in their time of need, we’re reminded of the ways in which friendship can sustain us throughout life’s challenges. The characters are all complex and relatable, and while some are a bit infuriating at times, I couldn’t help but root for them. I went back and forth between the ebook and the audiobook, and I felt Rowley’s narration added an extra layer of authenticity to the story. If anyone knows how these characters should sound, it’s him! The Celebrants is deeply moving, funny, and sad and truly captures the essence of love and the power of friendship. This is the perfect choice if you're looking for a book that will make you laugh, cry, and think!
kwcMegan G
The Guncle (May 2021) was a stand out book me. And when I saw Steven Rowley’s new book is a twist on The Big Chill it became a must read. Six people become best friends while at Berkley in 1995. They have a big reaction to one of their own dying at the age of 22. And in their grief they hatch a pact to have living funerals for each other. By doing that words and feelings don’t go unsaid to each other. The group of five head off to their lives in different directions. The book follows through time jumps as each one calls for a funeral. A divorce, death in the family, and even a crime are all reasons the friends gather and support each other. They give the person the lift they need to continue on and it gives a moment to catch up with one another. This book has funny moments but lacks the laugh out loud humor of the Guncle. I think that is partly because they are gathering in times of difficulties and trial. But there is still warmth, love and friendship. I also thought I’d get through the book without crying but the last page got me. I really enjoyed this book and the diverse characters. And it is always a nice reminder to not leave things unsaid to friends and loved ones. I also like that the section headings are named for songs from the Carpenters.
Carole WootenkwcM
I enjoyed this book! This is only the second book written by Steven Rowley that I have read and I have really liked both of them. This book focuses on a group of college friends that make a pact to host each other’s funerals while they are alive to appreciate it after losing one of their friends. They get together at various points in their lives, usually when one is experiencing a crisis, to do just that. I loved the focus on friendship and mortality. I really liked the idea of this group’s living funerals. I don’t remember everything from the time around my dad’s sudden death at a young age but I do remember thinking how much he would have liked to be there to talk to everyone. We get to see these characters at different points in time and I loved how they were there for each other even after spending years apart. I listened to the audiobook and thought that Mr. Rowley did a fantastic job of reading his novel. I have to admit that I am always a bit worried when I see that an author has made the choice to narrate their own book. Not all authors are good narrators but I thought that this author was able to bring the story to life with ease. I do believe that his narration only added to my overall enjoyment. I would recommend this book to others. I found it to be a compelling story driven by a colorful cast of characters and the bond between them. I hope to read more of this author’s work very soon. I received a review copy of this book from G.P Putnam’s Sons and Penguin Random House Audio.
Short Excerpt Teaser
YESTERDAY ONCE MORE
(Jordan, 2023)
He was an astronaut, he imagined, like in one of those movies; his mission took him to a distant planet on the far reaches of the solar system, Saturn, perhaps, or Neptune. He was gone a nominal amount of time-three years, maybe five, significant but not interminable-but somehow everyone Jordan Vargas knew on Earth had aged a lifetime while he was in space. Naomi with her readers, struggling to figure out the television's remote as if the technology had eluded her, her irritated face twisted in frustration. Craig in the kitchen employing the flashlight on his phone to read take-out menus, muttering the whole time about the Big Sur retreat's soft ambient light while confusing yellow curry with green. What was the difference? The color, yes, obviously. But one had more turmeric. What the hell color is turmeric? Marielle educating them in great detail about the kittens she'd brought for the weekend. They were born without eyes, a condition called microphthalmia, she explained, caused by a genetic mutation that can sometimes result in smaller-than-usual tongues. And Jordan Tosic, loyal Jordy, his husband and other half, the man who made them the Jordans to so many. (Should we invite the Jordans? You don't know the Jordans?! We love the Jordans!) Jordy's metamorphosis, like Jordan's own, was less shocking, as they'd been together since college and had witnessed each other aging slowly, each having had ample time to adjust to the other's weathering like the wearing of a beloved chair's upholstery over time.
Of course Jordan Vargas wasn't an astronaut, or anything close to it. He was a public relations executive, bound to Earth by gravity, a mortgage, a business he owned with his husband, and aging immigrant parents who moved the family from Bogotá when Jordan was eight to give him and his brother a better life. He was someone who vibrated not from sitting above liquid-fueled cryogenic rocket engines aboard a shuttle ready to launch, but with the genuine thrill of securing his clients ample media coverage. Or at least he used to, until slowly over the years he came to resent both the clickbaitification of journalism and the troublesome clients whom he saw more as crises than people. And it wasn't space travel that kept him away from these friends, a dangerous mission (as poetic as it might be to imagine), so much as his own busy life and the sad fact that friends-even best friends of thirty years-drift apart.
Jordan was growing impatient with Craig's inability to read a simple take-out menu. They were only in Big Sur for the long weekend; their time together, as always, was limited. He rolled up one of Mr. Ito's old National Geographic magazines stuffed in a rack next to him and, from the recliner where he sat, swatted the coffee table. "Jesus, Craig. How old are you?"
Craig sighed his displeasure.
Naomi peered over her glasses. "Don't do that to my father's magazines."
Cowed, Jordan rolled the publication the opposite way to flatten it. "Will someone help Nana with the menu? I'm famished."
"I just need to turn on some lights." Craig ran his hand against the dated backsplash in search of a light switch, managing only to trigger the garbage disposal instead.
"I told you. All the lights are already on." Naomi strained to open the remote, but the plastic latch was stuck. Her mother would use a dime to open battery compartments, but no one carried coins anymore.
"I'll help," Marielle offered. "My eyes are still young." She was also the youngest by a year, having skipped a grade somewhere, the only one of them yet to turn fifty. Her hair was untamed, an ashen blond with streaks of gray, and only a delicate whisper now of its former red. Of the five of them, she had updated her style the least, and she looked much like the lone female member of a once-popular folk trio-all she was missing was a tambourine.
"There's nothing wrong with my eyes. It's the light," Craig groused.
"It's not the light," Naomi insisted.
Jordy chuckled. "Unlike the cats."
"There's nothing wrong with their eyes," Marielle admonished, fussing over the laundry basket at her feet she'd requisitioned to make the kittens a nest. "It's just they don't have any."
Jordan looked up at Craig. "Toss me your phone."
"I only have one bar....
(Jordan, 2023)
He was an astronaut, he imagined, like in one of those movies; his mission took him to a distant planet on the far reaches of the solar system, Saturn, perhaps, or Neptune. He was gone a nominal amount of time-three years, maybe five, significant but not interminable-but somehow everyone Jordan Vargas knew on Earth had aged a lifetime while he was in space. Naomi with her readers, struggling to figure out the television's remote as if the technology had eluded her, her irritated face twisted in frustration. Craig in the kitchen employing the flashlight on his phone to read take-out menus, muttering the whole time about the Big Sur retreat's soft ambient light while confusing yellow curry with green. What was the difference? The color, yes, obviously. But one had more turmeric. What the hell color is turmeric? Marielle educating them in great detail about the kittens she'd brought for the weekend. They were born without eyes, a condition called microphthalmia, she explained, caused by a genetic mutation that can sometimes result in smaller-than-usual tongues. And Jordan Tosic, loyal Jordy, his husband and other half, the man who made them the Jordans to so many. (Should we invite the Jordans? You don't know the Jordans?! We love the Jordans!) Jordy's metamorphosis, like Jordan's own, was less shocking, as they'd been together since college and had witnessed each other aging slowly, each having had ample time to adjust to the other's weathering like the wearing of a beloved chair's upholstery over time.
Of course Jordan Vargas wasn't an astronaut, or anything close to it. He was a public relations executive, bound to Earth by gravity, a mortgage, a business he owned with his husband, and aging immigrant parents who moved the family from Bogotá when Jordan was eight to give him and his brother a better life. He was someone who vibrated not from sitting above liquid-fueled cryogenic rocket engines aboard a shuttle ready to launch, but with the genuine thrill of securing his clients ample media coverage. Or at least he used to, until slowly over the years he came to resent both the clickbaitification of journalism and the troublesome clients whom he saw more as crises than people. And it wasn't space travel that kept him away from these friends, a dangerous mission (as poetic as it might be to imagine), so much as his own busy life and the sad fact that friends-even best friends of thirty years-drift apart.
Jordan was growing impatient with Craig's inability to read a simple take-out menu. They were only in Big Sur for the long weekend; their time together, as always, was limited. He rolled up one of Mr. Ito's old National Geographic magazines stuffed in a rack next to him and, from the recliner where he sat, swatted the coffee table. "Jesus, Craig. How old are you?"
Craig sighed his displeasure.
Naomi peered over her glasses. "Don't do that to my father's magazines."
Cowed, Jordan rolled the publication the opposite way to flatten it. "Will someone help Nana with the menu? I'm famished."
"I just need to turn on some lights." Craig ran his hand against the dated backsplash in search of a light switch, managing only to trigger the garbage disposal instead.
"I told you. All the lights are already on." Naomi strained to open the remote, but the plastic latch was stuck. Her mother would use a dime to open battery compartments, but no one carried coins anymore.
"I'll help," Marielle offered. "My eyes are still young." She was also the youngest by a year, having skipped a grade somewhere, the only one of them yet to turn fifty. Her hair was untamed, an ashen blond with streaks of gray, and only a delicate whisper now of its former red. Of the five of them, she had updated her style the least, and she looked much like the lone female member of a once-popular folk trio-all she was missing was a tambourine.
"There's nothing wrong with my eyes. It's the light," Craig groused.
"It's not the light," Naomi insisted.
Jordy chuckled. "Unlike the cats."
"There's nothing wrong with their eyes," Marielle admonished, fussing over the laundry basket at her feet she'd requisitioned to make the kittens a nest. "It's just they don't have any."
Jordan looked up at Craig. "Toss me your phone."
"I only have one bar....
