It's been said that friends are the family we choose. The difficulties sometimes posed by those choices are the subject of Hal Ebbott's debut novel, Among Friends, a sensitive, intelligent psychological drama that tests the ties of longtime friendships and plunges two families into crisis.
The novel begins in an idyllic setting, as Amos, a therapist, his physician wife, Claire, and their 16-year-old daughter, Anna, arrive at an upstate New York vacation home. The home belongs to Amos's college roommate and best friend of more than 30 years, Emerson, a lawyer, his wife, Retsy, and their daughter, Sophie, who is Anna's age. They've gathered on a gorgeous October weekend to celebrate Emerson's 52nd birthday. At this age, he both stands at the height of his powers and yet somehow can glimpse the first hint of decline over the horizon. It's a scene reminiscent of James Salter's Light Years, but the perfection of this serene outer world is undermined that weekend by an incident that's known only to two members of the collective at the time. How that incident becomes known to others and the implications of that knowledge propel the novel's second half.
As Ebbott patiently but determinedly reveals, the glittering surface of the "smooth, edgeless life" of privilege these characters inhabit conceals a set of relationships that are far more fragile than any of their participants can imagine. Amos and Claire's marriage is the result of a post-college introduction by Emerson. Amos grew up in financially straitened circumstances, while lifelong friends Emerson and Claire have always moved in the circles of the affluent and powerful. And yet, despite this seeming imbalance, the latter two have their own vulnerabilities that are exposed by this crisis. All of these elements coalesce in the characters' agonizing struggles with choices that may imperil not only the ties of long and deep friendships, but the very existence of their "dense, dependable" family lives.
Ebbott's prose is both elegant and seemingly effortless, and he displays a consistent talent for producing what Claire thinks of as Amos's gift for "easy, pretensionless metaphor." Thus Emerson's face "wore its age lightly, like dust," while a shrug that passes between Emerson and Claire evokes "two children who'd found a wallet and decided against trying to find its owner." The novel shifts perspective smoothly among its sextet of characters while maintaining its acuity in examining the desires and motivations of each. Among Friends is a sophisticated exploration of some fraught and challenging subjects that exerts an insistent pull on both the mind and heart. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer
Shelf Talker: Enduring friendships are thrown into crisis by an incident that rocks the friends' beliefs about what those relationships truly mean.