Closer

by Miriam Gershow

Set in 2015 during Obama's presidency and Trump's early candidacy, the tranquil college town of Horace, Oregon, is disrupted when white students taunt a Black student in the high school library. This incident sparks immediate repercussions that ripple through the community, affecting students, families, and faculty alike. Woody, the school's guidance counselor, finds himself thrust into the spotlight after years on the sidelines. Lark, a struggling student, grapples with the fallout as her relationships are reshaped by the incident. Stefanie, a conflicted parent, struggles to balance protecting her child with allowing him to find his own path. Friendships are strained, marriages are tested, and families face the threat of sudden violence. When tragedy strikes with the death of a student, the survivors are left grappling with the fault lines in their most intimate relationships and searching for ways to draw closer.Closer explores themes of community, resilience, and the impacts of individual actions on collective destinies, offering a poignant reflection on how individuals grapple with their lives amidst societal challenges and personal reckonings.

280 pages, Paperback

Published June 3, 2025

About the author

Miriam Gershow is the author of Closer (Regal House), Survival Tips: Stories (Propeller Books), and The Local News (Spiegel & Grau). Miriam’s stories appear in The Georgia Review, Gulf Coast and Black Warrior Review, among other journals. Her flash fiction appears in anthologies from Alan Squire Books, Alternating Currents, and Fractured Lit, as well as many journals, including Pithead Chapel, Had, and Variant Lit. Her creative nonfiction is featured in Salon and Craft Literary among other journals.

Miriam’s writing has been called “unusually credible and precise" and "deftly heartbreaking” by The New York Times. She is the recipient of a Fiction Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, an Oregon Literary Fellowship, an Independent Publisher Book Award, and a Pencraft Award. She is a two-time finalist for the Oregon Book Awards’ Ken Kesey Award for Fiction and has been awarded writing residencies at Playa, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Hypatia-in-the-Woods, and Wildacres.

She received her MFA from the University of Oregon, and has since taught fiction writing at the University of Wisconsin as well as descriptive writing to gifted high school students through Johns Hopkins University. She has taught writing to first-graders, retirees, and everyone in between. She is the organizer of 100 Notable Small Press Books, a curated list of the year’s recommended titles across genres from independent publishers. Miriam lives with her family in Eugene OR, where she teaches writing at the University of Oregon.
(Photo Credit: Livia Fremouw)

Reviews

[Stacy40pages · Rating 4 out of 5]

Closer by Miriam Gershow. Thanks to @getredpr for the gifted copy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Set in 2015, a racial incident in the high school library sets off a ripple through the community.

This story did a great job of showing what it was like coming of age as a teenager while racial incidents flare in 2015. It does this without becoming sensationalistic but still brings the feelings. You know how it ends from the beginning but it does not take away any of the emotions.

Closer comes out 6/3.

[Jenny Noyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miriam Gershow pulls off my favorite writerly trick. Her novel CLOSER is a domestic page-turner and a thought-provoking work of literature. I was fully absorbed into the characters’ compelling dramas long before I realized, with a shock: this book explores important, culturally significant ideas!

Gershow’s characters are trapped inside their humanity; they cannot be rid of their feelings, their bodies, or their idiosyncrasies. Gershow brings the reader deep into the inner worlds of these characters, whose motivations I recognized and whose actions often surprised me. Some of CLOSER’s characters recognize that they’re trapped, some refuse to acknowledge it, and all make big mistakes. They are real people. So real, in fact, that I am convinced that if I saw Lark or Woody or Stefanie walking down the street, I would recognize them. A juicy reading experience results from this deep engagement with such palpably human characters. For me, the suspense of this novel came from wondering: who is this? Who will they become?

CLOSER moves at a rapid clip, and each section pulls the reader deeper into the plot and an understanding of the characters and their choices. Most sections are focused on each of three central characters, and others are email exchanges, meeting notes, and other communication detritus. These “materials” make the novel a pitch-perfect expression of the 2016-17 era in which the events take place.

I love books featuring young female characters learning who they are. Having been one myself, I know how multifaceted that experience is. At the novel's outset, Lark is a wisp of a thing. The web of emotions she lives through–self-loathing, desire, disgust, loneliness, the first glimpses of self-awareness–is painful. But Gershow deftly brings the reader along through Lark’s coming of age so that the reader discovers who Lark is at the same time that she does. For readers like me, who identify with aspects of Lark’s history, this is a profound experience–the kind of experience readers crave.

The most surprising thing about CLOSER was how much it made me think. It’s disguised as domestic fiction (and it satisfies that craving), but it’s a thinker! Lark’s experience contrasts with the adults here, who seem so deeply absorbed in their own circumstances that they barely perceive them. But the issues they are dealing with, and which CLOSER invites the reader to explore, are big: race, infidelity, disability, aging parents, sexuality, and suicide. In the days and weeks after reading this book, I found myself turning these ideas over in my mind, and Lark’s, Woody’s, and Stefanie’s experiences helped me to see new facets of them. With her incisive and often funny writing, Gershow shines a light on new angles of these characters’ very human experiences. This kind of illumination makes for a reading experience that feels both pleasurable and important. What a feat!

CLOSER is the best kind of domestic novel: smart, compassionate, full of great lines, and bursting with life.

[Hannah gandara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Firstly, thank you to Get Red PR for sending me a physical arc of Closer.

Secondly, after reading the synopsis, I knew this was going to be a book that I would really enjoy. I would say the first 30% of this book had me very intrigued. I felt like every POV flowed well together.
And then somewhere closer to the middle, I felt like I was reading several different stories in one book. And I guess that’s partially the point, because we are getting the insight to so many characters lives. However, I felt like a lot of what was going on in this book had no relevance to the initial synopsis. After the initial incidents that happened to Baz and his girlfriend, I was hoping for more focus on them. I do think that the situations that involved his guidance counselor eventually tied together in the end, but some of the drama really frustrated me.
I do think that the story is written very well and is very realistic to what could be happening at any high school in America even in present day. There were many topics in this story that are so important and should be spoken about regularly.

Thanks again for the ARC.

3.5 stars rounded up.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Closer is a story about a specific group of students and the adults around them. But it’s also a story about ALL of our communities in the particular era we’ve found ourselves in. Told from a variety of perspectives, it confronts so many of the issues surrounding us in a way that’s both empathetic and entertaining. Poignant and moving and insightful, I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time to come.

Many thanks to Miriam Gershow, Regal House Publishing, and Get Red PR for the gifted book. All opinions expressed are my own.

[OhioSQ · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent story with great character development. The story revolved around the three teenagers Livvy, Lark, and Baz. Bringing in the perspective from their parents was on point. I could have done without Woody, the guidance counselor. His story and shenanigans were not really central to the story.

[Erin Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

✨🔮🌞🌕🍄🌕🌞🔮✨

ARC REVIEW

Closer - Miriam Gershow

4/5⭐️

📚📚📚
This one I was not expecting to make me feel emotions the way it did but I was surprised. At some points my eyes were just filled with tears. I really felt like this book was able to showcase life inside of some high school during 2015-17 and the coming of age with teenagers. This book definitely explores some deeper topics that could be hard for some but I felt it was written very well to bring those topics to life while reading. My heart broke at some many different points for these characters and the things they had to endure. I feel like this book could be very relatable for some readers. I did absolutely binge this in one sitting and so recommend it!

📚📚📚
If you like to read:
- Contemporary
- Fiction
- Coming of age
… You should definitely check this out

📚📚📚

Thank you so much for sending me a copy for an honest review in my own words. #giftedcopy

✨what’s a book that’s really made you think?

#books #booklover #smut #booknerd #bookfriend #bookish #booklovers #bookishcommunity #bookloversunite #instabook #bookporn #bookphotography #reviews #igbooks #ilovereading #smutty #bookaddiction #bookhoader #hotnsexy #fortheloveofbooks #bookrecs #yummy #givemeallthebooks #readingthepainaway #booktok #arc

[Tonja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miriam Gershow's novel, Closer, explores the impact of Obama-era racism in a mostly white college town. This book is a serious read, and Gershow does not hold back when delving into a variety of social issues.

The risk, of course, is piling on too much and making the book feel like it is about everything all at once. But Gershow adeptly creates a throughline for the reader. Racism is the central problem that sets the story's events into motion. I cannot help but see the plot as a yearlong trust exercise where the characters fall backward blindly, not knowing if the other characters will catch them or let them get hurt and to what degree. Maybe no one will even notice they fell.

For me, this novel has three main strengths. First, it refuses to hold back on the social issues and systemic failures in this time period. Second, it offers a touch of humor at the right moments, just enough to make the story palatable to the reader without negating the difficult subject matter. Finally, the characters in this story are distinct, unforgettable, and relatable (even when they make mistakes).

Overall, I would absolutely recommend this book to readers. This is a 4.5 star read for me. Rounding up.

[J Passaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hesitate to say that Miriam Gershow’s forthcoming novel, CLOSER, is about race and class and disability and gender and sexuality and marriage and infidelity and aging parents and suicide because that might sound like it’s overly ambitious. (Gershow pulls it off.) I could say it’s about smart, funny characters, some of whose lives devolve after a few wrong turns. What it is most of all is great writing, a moving, deepening story that’s well-told, full of Gershow’s trademark insight into the nuanced ways we communicate with our bodies and words, awkward, self-conscious, aware and not aware.

Though you know one element of what is to come from the beginning of the novel, you *need* to know how it’s going to unfold—good luck if you can put it down. And when it does unfold, it’s devastating. Maybe even more devastating because the novel is a kind of mirror. This is an important read for our time, lightened by humor, brightened by insight, lovingly done.

[Caroline Goyette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved CLOSER. The book is somehow both a highly readable page-turner (I didn’t want to put it down!), and at the same time boasts all the depth and substance of literary fiction. The novel centers on the relationship between high schoolers Lark and Livvy, rendering the girls’ intense, all-consuming friendship with realism and poignancy. But the world of the novel is much bigger, stretching to include parents, school staff, siblings, friends, and a broader social and political landscape simmering behind the scenes. Told from multiple points of view, CLOSER mines the rich lives of the characters, while simultaneously exploring the delicate connections among them—and the heartbreaking implications one’s choices can have for another. I had no idea how the author would tie up so many powerful character trajectories, and yet the ending felt seamless and satisfying in a lovely, unexpected way. This book lingers. Honest and evocative, CLOSER stuck with me after I finished reading.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This was the first character-driven novel I’ve read in a while that truly had me connecting with so many characters. There’s a dual timeline, starting with a death in 2016 and then jumping back to 2015 and catching back up to the event. Each character’s connection to the event becomes unraveled, with everyone having their hand in some way. I definitely enjoyed some characters’ POVs more than others, but didn’t find it hard to differentiate between them all. I wish there had been more background on the conflict between Livvy and her mom because it felt like so much from that was important to it all, but missing. Regardless, Closer had me in my feels, thinking about my own struggles as a teenager and thinking about all the things I will have to worry about my kids dealing with as they get older.

[P. Blackbridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading Miriam Gershow' novel "Closer" and I'm quite blown away. It's intricate and absorbing and kind of devastating.

One of the great things about it is the structure, which is multiple narrators. They all overlap, living in the same town. And you get to see the things that happen in the town from different perspectives, as each narrator deals with the things that are central in their own lives. Which are very different, but beautifully intertwined, so what's background and what's foreground shift.

There isn't the typical main plot and 2 subplots like novels (and movies, videogames, etc.) often have, but many interwoven plots. No one character's story is the main plot. Which is what empathy teaches us: everyone is at the centre of their own story, and we're all interconnected, and no one is the main character. It's quite an amazing sea to swim in.

[Susan Ballard (subakkabookstuff) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in 2015, this was a powerful, realistic, and thought-provoking story. The author skillfully interweaves the lives of young high school students with those of their families, school staff, and the community as a whole.

Not only is this a sharp and perceptive look at the teenage years—friendships, dating, and identity—but it also examines the tragic ripple effects of racism and class. Through nuanced writing and believable characters, I was not only engrossed but also deeply engaged in this intense and emotionally charged story. It felt like an explosive powder keg at times, yet at other times, it captured humanity in a single, poignant snapshot.

I highly recommend this intense read!

Thank you @getredprbooks @miriamgershow and @regal_house_publishing for the gifted book.

[Lee Woodruff · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sleepy little town of Horace, Oregon is a powder keg. And the fuse is lit when a black student is taunted in the school library by a group of white students. Told through a series of sharp vignettes, the novel rotates around between very real characters who are wrestling with short and long term repercussions during the Obama years and into the early days of Trump’s candidacy. The feeling of change is in the air, from the school’s guidance counsellor to a parent trying to protect her son, and to Lark, a struggling student. This patchwork quilt of personalities and complexity is a tale of love, loss and resilience that holds a mirror up to society and the way one action can impact a broader community.

[Linda Sienkiewicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miriam Gershow tackles a stunning breadth of social issues from race, religion, class, sexual identity, disability, and infidelity with remarkable finesse. She deftly navigates six distinct points of view, each belonging to wildly different characters, all rooted in a single community that could be anywhere in America.

The characters are achingly human: reckless, impulsive, brimming with messy emotions, from impressionable teenagers to adults who should know better. The narrative builds, plotlines tangle and thicken until everything finally explodes. As a reader, I found myself breathless, asking: “Holy shit, how did we get here?”

There are casualties and fallout, grief and reckoning—and yet there’s also hope, because tomorrow offers us another chance to do better

[David Galef · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miriam Gershow's new novel, Closer, presents such a dynamic, absorbing, at times frighteningly intimate close-up of school life and beyond that at times it's hard to stop reading and reassure yourself that you're not enrolled at West High School and not conducting extracurricular activities that can get you into--but I'll stop before any plot spoilers. And anyway, it's the sharp-edged prose and eye for detail that also pull you along. Haven't read her first novel, The Local News, but her short story collection, Survival Tips, is darned good, too.

[Chris Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miriam Gershow cleverly weaves twisted webs of racism and social status, identity and acceptance (or the lack of) in high school and beyond in her multifaceted novel, CLOSER, where love and lust take center stage, in search of entanglements built on secrets sure to unravel in devastating waves. Delivered with perfectly placed clips of humor and flawless, absorbing prose throughout, CLOSER pushed me way past my comfort zones and left me jaw-dropped, catching my breath, page after page. —Chris McClain Johnson, author of THREE GUESSES

[Jeaux Bartlett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Closer is a phenomenal, fast-paced, emotionally-resonant book that pulls you into and all the way through it.
Gershow creates compelling, complicated characters who convincingly flail their way through their lives (and the plot). I see myself in this book, my kids, their peers, the community we live in. It's all too real, in the best of ways.
Closer is an excellent, moving read. It's one of those books where I find myself still inhabiting the world, wondering about the characters, how things might have been different if only, etc., days after I finished reading it.

[Megan Schikora · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her breathtaking new novel Closer, Miriam Gershow shies away from nothing, exposing the ugliness just beneath a community’s smooth surface and the innermost chambers of its inhabitants’ emotional lives. I moved through the novel at an almost urgent clip, unable to put it down and with the same thought throughout. “I know this place. I know these people.” My investment in these characters, rendered by Gershow with such ferocity and tenderness, was immediate.

Closer is a fearless, riveting read, one sure to impact readers long after they have reluctantly finished.

[Sheri Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my kind of book, an engrossing page-turner with a terrific range of lively, convincing characters. There’s immediate tension and conflict around up-to-the-minute issues, but without any false overdramatizing—everything that happens feels absolutely real. I confess I got a little mad at the characters, like I get mad at friends whose bad decisions arise out of their real, human, nearly loveable flaws. Reflecting humanity is no small achievement, but this novel goes beyond: it opens up new ways to understand people that will make you feel enlightened by the end.

[Laura Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Closer is fast paced and full of drama—a racially charged incident at an Oregon high school, friendships and marriages fraying, the tragic fate of one of the students involved in the incident. But equally compelling is the way the story unfolds through deeply relatable character studies. The characters' motivations and actions in their roles as parents, spouses, mentors and caregivers give voice to how we grapple with complicated relationships and duties of care. Highly recommend this page turner.

[Jen Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you for the gifted copy, Get Red PR & Miriam Gershow.

This is a well written, realistic, and relatable read. It’s multifaceted, deeply profound, and important, touching on racism, acceptance, resilience and community. Set in 2015 but it could happen anywhere at any time. Decisions, choices, and a multitude of consequences. What is the impact? How does it change you? Do you learn and grow, or remain stagnant.

Closer is a true coming of age. Intense, emotional, and thought provoking. And honestly, a perfect time to pick this one up.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even as it dissects the seismic political-cultural shifts of the present day in America, Closer will make you cheer, and cringe, and weep, and think. Told through complex, vividly drawn characters and a feels-like-you're-there setting, the story about the ways a racially charged incident in a high school library fans out into the community of fictional Horace, Oregon is by turns propulsive and contemplative, wild and wise—full of humor and achingly real in its archeological dig into the minds and hearts of us all. Miriam Gershow is a writer for our times.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intense! Once I got about 25% in, I couldn’t put it down. A story about high school and parents of high schoolers. The writing isn’t “fancy,” but really well done. I think the description makes it sound like this is about one specific incident, but it many ways it’s really character studies of a number of people in overlapping social circles. It covers much more than one specific incident; it’s more of a slice of life in a high school environment over a few months. I thought it was very interesting.

[Nia]

A story whose back drop is 2015/2016 America right at the end of Obama’s final term and approaching Trump’s term… boy do I remember those days…

The back drop was there, definitely, but I do wish it were more present. There’s so much to work with here but I almost wish I saw it more, you know? Same is true for the characters, there’s so much there, especially considering this is a character driven story. I just wish the arcs were stronger. Like it’s a painting, of this school during this time, but it feels like the very paint that fills that canvas is weak, if that makes sense.

[Jennifer Oko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Closer is one of the most captivating novels I have read in a long time. With warmth and humor, Gershow deftly navigates a tangled web of crisscrossing landmines— family, friendship, class, race, adolescence, and love. It is a combustible stew that a lesser writer might shy from, but Gershow attacks these thorny topics head on. With multidimensional, nuanced characters and gorgeous, propulsive prose, this is a story that will stay with readers long after the shocking, heart-stopping end.

[Tia · Rating 3 out of 5]

~3.25 stars~
'How do we heal when empathy doesn't come easily?'

Wowzers, that is a quote that I loved from this book, it was a pretty emotional read. It was not comforting in any sense of the word but it was real. 

This book is set in 2015 and an incident happens in a high school library where white students taunt a black student and the fallout from that single incident expands far beyond the walls of the library and will cause strain on students, families and faculty. 

This book tackles racism and adolesence and the important of community. We have several different characters, voices and plot lines that are happening independently but at the same time and they all come together at the end. 

- We have an interracial relationship is formed that some are having a difficult time with.
- Lark is a troubled student who is trying to figure out who she is and her relationships have to get redefined after this incident. 
- We have a couple of mom's who are struggling to parent 
- We have Woody who is a school counselor, loves his job, but is thrown into temptation (not with a student) and has him acting far outside of his normal character. 
- Without revealing too much (but the book literally opens up with this), a death of a student changes everything. 

Like I said, there is a lot going on and there is a lot to keep straight which I had a little trouble doing at the beginning.

I rated this 3.25, mostly because I felt like 'big event' that the story was set up to lead up to... was left pretty flat. There was opportunity to get into the actual event, the thoughts leading up to it etc... and it was kind of glossed by so i felt a little unfulfilled in that aspect but I thought that the meaning and the themes throughout were important.  

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

This rather sad and complex story featured both adult and older teenager characters. It explored the themes of racism, harassment, marriage, infidelity, parenting (including special needs children), coming out as gay and coming of age. I certainly enjoyed it, but it did feel like I was getting a short glimpse into the lives of these really interesting characters and was left wanting a bit more. Maybe a sequel? Thanks to Edelweiss+ for the digital advance reading copy. 4/5

[Mim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so well written, a page turner but also deeply thought-provoking. It didn't fit neatly into any genre, and I genuinely found myself unsure where it was going, despite knowing part of what ending it was propulsively leading me towards due to a scene at the beginning. Bravo to the author for so perfectly getting into the minds of so many disparate characters with pitch-perfect inner monologues!

[Diane Wald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Closer is an immersive literary experience rife with fascinating characters and well developed subplots, all of them ringing true through Gershow’s use of exacting language, natural dialogue, and breathtaking detail. An intense undercurrent of anxious anticipation will keep readers enthralled until the end. Highly recommended!

[Kristin Loves Plants · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️ This tragic story tells the story of the tragic loss of a teenage girl through the lives of 3 people unrelated but entwined in each other’s paths. An incident of racist bullying sets off a chain of events that change their lives forever. This is intense, a page turner, and the prose are beautiful.