Let's Get Back to the Party

by Zak Salih

What Does It Mean to Be a Gay Man Today?

It’s just weeks after the historic Supreme Court marriage equality ruling, and all Sebastian Mote wants is to settle down. A high school art history teacher, newly single and desperately lonely, he envies his queer students their freedom to live openly the youth he lost to fear and shame.  

So when he runs into his childhood friend Oscar Burnham at a wedding in Washington, D.C., he can’t help but see it as a second chance. Now thirty-five, the men haven’t seen each other in a decade. But Oscar has no interest in their shared history. Instead, he’s outraged by what he sees as the death of gay culture: bars overrun with bachelorette parties; friends getting married, having babies.

While Oscar and Sebastian struggle to find their place in a rapidly changing world, each is drawn into a cross-generational friendship that treads the line between envy and obsession: Sebastian with one of his students and Oscar with an older icon of the AIDS era. And as they collide again and again, both men must come reckon not just with one another, but with themselves.

Rich with sharply drawn characters and contemporary detail, provocative, and emotionally profound, Let’s Get Back to the Party is sure to appeal to readers of Garth Greenwell, Alan Hollinghurst, Claire Messud, and Rebecca Makkai.

Genres: LGBT, Fiction, Queer, Contemporary, Gay, Adult, Literary Fiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published February 16, 2021

About the author

Zak Salih earned his BA in English and Journalism from James Madison University, and his MA in English from the University of Virginia. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous magazines. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Reviews

[Larry H · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

Zak Salih's upcoming debut novel, Let's Get Back to the Party , is a thought-provoking and emotionally rich story about two gay men trying to find their place in the world around them.

Oscar and Sebastian were best friends in childhood until Oscar moved away. They haven’t seen each other for years, until Sebastian spots him at a wedding when they’re both 35.

Sebastian, lonely and dealing with the breakup of a relationship, is excited to see Oscar and hopes they may be able to recapture a childhood friendship rich with potential. But Oscar doesn’t want to be reminded of those times, of his vulnerability at a young age.

It’s the weeks after the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage, and Oscar feels this is another strike against the gay community. Getting married, having babies, allowing drunk women to overtake gay bars? Is this what we fought for, risked our lives for, homogenization?

Both men are, in their own way, desperate for connection, desperate not to become invisible. Oscar spends his time with anonymous hookups and begins a friendship with a once-famous gay author who is much older than him. Sebastian, a teacher, supervises his school’s LGBTQ group and envies the easy way some students have with accepting and living their truth, something he didn’t have.

While the idea that men “of a certain age” become invisible to the gay community is both cliché and reality, Salih accurately captures the fears, loneliness, and moments of desperate need that many feel from time to time. When all of your friends are getting married and leaving you behind, or if you’re in a place where you really have no friends, what is left for you?

Alternating between memories of childhood and the present, Let's Get Back to the Party is a beautifully told story that really resonated with me. While I’m not sure I particularly loved either of the characters, I was tremendously invested in their story.

I was fortunate to be on the blog tour for this book. Algonquin Books provided me with a complimentary advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!

Let's Get Back to the Party publishes 2/16.

Check out my list of the best books I read in 2020 at https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-best-books-i-read-in-2020.html.

Check out my list of the best books of the last decade at https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2020/01/my-favorite-books-of-decade.html.

See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com.

Follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/the.bookishworld.of.yrralh/.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU!

There are a lot of things to celebrate among queer Americans at the moment. Progress has been made that, when I was a babyqueer, was inconceivable. (And yes, I do know what that word means.) Legal marriage? Common surrogate fatherhood?! Even, in some places, adoption?!? All this presupposes joint mortgages, life insurance left to one's partner, joint bank accounts, Social Security survivor benefits...holy carp, the GOP tomb-raiders who oppose even straight people getting back the money they put into the system must be plotzing. Believe you me, under-40s, not one bit of this was probable in a world with Don't-Ask Don't-Tell witchhunts in all branches of the military and the ever so inaptly named Defense of Marriage Act specifically, and unConstitutionally, forbidding same-sex couples from receiving the 1,049 (by some counts) benefits available to heterosexuals simply by speaking a few words to a County Clerk. (If you're wondering, the religious idiots do not have any thing at all to say about marriage. They can refuse to perform a marriage ceremony for anyone they choose, for any reason they choose; but the State is the only entity that can declare you married, and this has always been so in the United States.)

But what laws give, they can take away; and these rights which are justly ours as much as theirs can, with the wrong (aka right-wing) party at the helm of government, be taken away again by legal chicanery. And Oscar Burnham is bitterly aware of this. Beyond the fact that the extension of legal access to protection for couples strikes at one of the defining qualities of gay-manhood, unbridled and unfettered and unceremonious couple/uncouple relationships where everyone is Mr. Right Now, he's grouchy and squicked out about how the gays are becoming hipsters instead of threatening outsiders to be envied and feared. When he meets Sean, the elderqueer, the survivor of the AIDS years (aka "my direct contemporary") they bond over the Sad State of Things. Sean remembers what it was to be Other with a capital Q when one came out or was outed. Oscar, bless him, tries his damnedest to be there in Sean's head, attaches himself to the older man, becomes his happy shadow.

Sebastian Mote teaches for a living. Sebastian, after re-encountering youthful friend Oscar at a wedding, begins to think...well...sense...maybe perceive will do...that the unfinished business he brings to the table where Oscar's sitting should get more attention from them both. A dance begins, one that ended a decade before; one that wasn't ever resolved, though, so the emotional bonds are still firmly seated. Sebastian's so involved with his students, in the not-squicky way, that he doesn't quite see how Arthur is becoming an obsession...doesn't quite want to let go of his access to the youth's open, happy life awaiting him with boyfriend Raymond.

There is so much about what happens that you'll hate having spoiled. I need you to know, though, one big facet of this story is tragic and painful and life- and generation-defining. It will leave or open wounds for its ferocity and its outrageous reminder that Hate trumps all values thrown in its way because humans love the raw, red, bloody gobbets of The Other's flesh. I don't like that it's true, but nothing in my over-sixty years on Earth has ever come close to persuading me that it isn't.

I am, in a lot of ways, like Oscar: Grumpy, disillusioned by mainstreaming, in a strange, intergenerational love relationship that doesn't look like one anyone outside it understands. (I hope like hell that Rob doesn't feel conflicted about the same things Oscar does!) For that reason, I found this read very much an involving one. The relationship Oscar has with his parents, the emotional ties that bind but are ever looser he feels with Sebastian...all very much like my own life.

What in the end worked best for me about this read was my sense of its reality, its groundedness, and thus it earned my trust. I was always glad to read more and I returned to the read without hesitation. I'm so pleased that the publisher decided to offer me the book to review, and I'm just as pleased that the author wrote such a deeply personal story. The one thing you shouldn't expect is detailed sex scenes, à la Garth Greenwell mentioned in the blurb. It's just not needed to tell this tale the best way it could be told, so Author Salih doesn't do it for the sake of doing it. A big point in his favor.

Then there's the Tragedy I alluded to above, while handled sensitively, isn't so delightful; I wasn't all the way convinced that the event's aftermath was, in fact, not given short shrift. It felt to me as though it was no longer useful in the plot so let's just go now, k? And they did. It wasn't what I felt was enough given the scope of it.

While it did reinforce the solipsism of these men's on-again, off-again intimacy, it felt off, almost reductive, as it's presented in the book. That's a matter of opinion, I know, so take it as such and decide for yourself what you think of the ending.

Now we all have to sit and twiddle our thumbs until Author Salih brings us his next idea. I'm looking forward, and expect you will be too.

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

Zak Salih, in "Let's Get Back to the Party," reflects on the loneliness - and selfishness - that pops up in contemporary gay life.

Sebastian and Oscar are two very different gay men who share a common childhood, one in which, unknown to both of them, they both wrestled with their queer identities at a time when being queer was socially unacceptable and dangerous. Now, as adults, they both navigate a changing social landscape in which queer people are increasingly present and living "normal" lives. Sebastian wrestles with the freedom he sees in the lives of his queer high school students and finds himself both jealous of and longing for what these liberated students have; Oscar finds himself increasingly angry at a gay world that is being overtaken and normalized by the straights.

Sadly much of Salih's writing is too on the nose and his characters are cliches, constructed to make a number of "points" about the gay community but in such a way that he fails to really capture the nuances of why gay men act the way they do. While the idea of the book is an important one - a reflection on being a middle-aged gay man in a world where gays can live more freely - the execution is lacking. The characters are flat and the plot, and ending, leave much to be desired. And as a result, this book doesn't actually get to the heart of gay life or ask essential questions about what we do and who we are as queer people.

"Let's Get Back to the Party" and actually rethink why it is gay men are the way that they are and not rely on cliches to do it.

[Lyn❤Loves❤Listening to Real Voices Only!!!!❤️🎧📚 Addict ON HIATUS · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audio 5 Stars
Story 3.5 Stars

That ending though...

[Gerhard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thinking of ourselves caught at the wrong party, at the wrong time. Born a little too early, or a little too late.

I’ve been thinking about this book for a while, struggling to articulate what I liked about it and what I didn’t. Sometimes you just can’t put your finger on why a certain book clicked for you or not. Hey, on Goodreads I can just leave the space blank and let me my thoughts percolate (or turn into sludge like coffee grounds) but imagine being a professional and you have ‘reviewer’s block’…

One thing that struck me is how a book published in 2021 can already be out of date. This is largely due to the fact that gender and minority politics are so fluid right now, but it is also because Zak Salih deliberately focuses his story on a particular turning point in gay rights in the US, namely the right to get married as promulgated by the Supreme Court in 2015.

Needless to say, the book opens with a gay wedding as a stage to introduce our two main protagonists: Sebastian, whose long-term relationship has just come to a crashing end, and Oscar, who thinks that being married is akin to selling out to the devil. Sebastian and Oscar were childhood friends who eventually grew apart when Oscar moved away (following some judicious fooling around with each other), but Sebastian has always nurtured a little flame for his (seemingly) carefree friend. To his chagrin, Oscar does not recognise him at all and instead spends most of the wedding on his phone.

That is because he is arranging a hook-up for after the wedding, but the guy is MIA and off-line at the same time (haven’t we all been there). At the bar, Oscar meets an older man who he thinks is hitting on him, but they end up … just talking. This is ‘Sean Stokes’, a once famous gay author now in his 60s, whose muse and youth have long since departed, both probably hand in hand. The opening line of his first novel ‘Ecce Homo’ is essentially the philosophy that underpin a lifetime of lurid debauchery: “I vow, henceforth, to live by cock alone.” (Somewhere Edmund White’s ears must be twitching).

Oscar only discovers this when he begins to read the copy of the book that Sean gives him. He is sufficiently intrigued to begin an email correspondence with the ageing author. It gives both men insight into opposite sides of the gay rainbow, as it were: Sean has an activist (and rutting) background of note, hailing from a time when being gay was an assault against the bastion of civilisation, and who thinks upstarts like Oscar have it way too easy and are squandering the possibilities of their hard-won freedoms.

Oscar, in turn, thinks that gay geezers like Sean have sold themselves, and the entire gay community, down the river by assimilating into straight society to the point where they are even getting married. What happened to ‘living by cock alone’ as the rallying cry of being truly and unrepentantly gay? School art teacher Sebastian, meanwhile, is increasingly fixated on a teenage pupil who reminds him of a boy in a Caravaggio painting. Uh oh, that sounds like a recipe for disaster. It is.

Curiously, Sebastian resents his pupil for being so carefree and open about his sexuality. Said pupil had no comprehension of, let alone empathy, with the agonies of youth that Sebastian’s closeted generation had to endure. I hasten to add that the psychological trauma Sebastian thinks has stunted his own gay sensibility well into adulthood is just an attempt to excuse himself for being such a dick in general.

So, you can see there is a lot going on in this book. Perhaps too much. My trouble with the two main characters is that, apart from them both being irredeemably unlikeable, they also seem to represent opposite ends of a debate rather than flesh-and-blood people. Yes, these are fictional people … But you know what I mean. The most ‘real’ person is the fictional author, a broad pastiche of White that is unfortunately more cringeworthy than it is flattering.

Another problem is that the book is told in the first person, with chapters alternating between ‘Oscar’ and ‘Sebastian’, and often giving different viewpoints on the same events. First person is technically difficult to pull off, and I don’t think Salih quite nails it here. There is also a bit of clumsy deus ex machina plotting that is far more melodramatic than it needs to be.

My wish for Salih as a writer is to forget about politics, posturing, wokeness, the legal and societal debates, and just to write gay characters and a gay novel stemming from that most important organ by which we all strive to live: the human heart.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thought provoking and relatable to people in the gay community. The battle between feeling “mainstream” while also feeling excluded from it is a constant paradox for our community. The writing style didn’t work for me, but I loved the messaging that the author was trying to convey to the audience.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A book about the push and pull of the gay community post-Obergefell, and how they play out individually for two former childhood friends.

Sebastian has just been dumped by his long-time boyfriend, who was miserable after they moved to a house in the country. Oscar's friends are all getting married and he is disgusted by the way gay men are assimilating into the world and losing their community and identity. For a few years when they were kids, before Oscar moved away, they were close friends, but then lost touch. For most of the book, Sebastian and Oscar are opposites. Everything about their lives is different. But they aren't always in the same place, sometimes they will end up still on opposite ends but having switched sides.

Another juxtaposition, they are obsessed with the past and the future of gay culture. Oscar makes friends with a famous gay novelist 30 years his senior who was best known for writing books that weren't much more than catalogs of sexual encounters. He admires the man, but not the melancholy old man in front of him, the young man on the page. Sebastian is obsessed with one of his students, a teen who has been out publicly for years, who has a boyfriend, who is able to live authentically in a way teenage Sebastian never could have dreamed. They are grappling with what it means to be in the middle of a generational shift. They are not the raucous and hardened generation that lived through the AIDS epidemic. They are not the youth coming up in a world where people come out as kids. Gay marriage is something they never grew up expecting, but suddenly have, and what does it mean?

I liked what the book was trying to do, but I think it didn't quite hold up in the second half. As Sebastian and Oscar fall apart in their own personal crises, we lose the thread of the themes. The book wants so much to put us precisely in time between the Obergefell ruling and the Pulse shooting, and sometimes it feels a bit too heavy-handed. And some may be frustrated to read because it's so limited in scope, focusing mostly on relatively well-off cis gay men in a large city, when we know that the battle is not all the way won for youth, for queer communities of color, for trans people. Like a lot of gay literature, the focus here is on gay men and no one else. Which is fine, but the fact that it's so much of a pattern always makes me wonder why it doesn't get more pushback.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5, rounded up.

This sounded really interesting and intriguing in the synopsis, and I didn't wind up detesting it, but it didn't much live up to hopes and expectations either. Alternating between the perspectives of two gay men in their mid-30's, childhood friends meeting again after an interval of ten years, during the pivotal year 2016, right after the SCOTUS decision on marriage equality, they are meant to exemplify the opposing philosophies of whether gays are better off being 'normalized', or are giving up their essential uniqueness in assimilating. That would be fine, except I found both major characters equally annoying - Sebastian, surely a stand-in for the author himself, is something of a simp, whereas Oscar is a clichéd party boy.

Both spend most of their time pursuing others - Seb develops a rather ooky obsession with one of his 17 year old students, whereas Oscar becomes infatuated with an older famous gay author, apparently modelled after John Rechy. Perhaps because we are about the same age, I found this character to be the most relatable, although he remains something of a cipher (including a rather startling turn-about in his politics, which is never satisfactorily explained), and disappears from the proceedings all too soon. But perhaps my dissatisfaction stems from not really being able to connect nor sympathize with the main characters half my age.

The other thing that annoyed me is the author's tendency to jump around in the chronology and suddenly insert needless flashbacks, and it seemed a cheap shot to end the proceedings with the horrendous Pulse nightclub massacre. In actuality, I found the delightful anecdote from which the book takes its title to be more entertaining than anything that followed.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

In the absence of college classes, I read to educate myself as much as for fun. This book is definitely one for the former category. The true crux of this book is what it means to be a gay man in today's world. To be honest (and I'm admitting this with embarrassment), it never even occurred to me that there would be an alternative opinion outside of happiness when the US Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage was legal. In this book, we meet two character's on opposite ends of that viewpoint. Sebastian (wanted to be seen as 'normal' to society and welcomed SCOTUS' decision) and Oscar who found the decision abhorrent and prickled at how the struggle was lost and that straight women invaded gay bars and took 'his space' over. Both characters have a history from childhood and flit in and out of each other's lives. They both view the other as the antithesis of what life as a gay man should be. As the book progresses, Sebastian and Oscar have their views challenged by the other as well fall off kilter in their routines due to the force of new people entering their lives. In Sebastian's life, he becomes almost enamored by a student of his who lives his life openly gay and proud. In Oscar's instance, he meets an author who served as a pillar in the gay community who was most famously known for his books on his sexual conquests and later his writing on the death of gay men in the 80s.

Watching Oscar and Sebastian go through life was uncomfortable, cringe-worthy (at times), maddening (I mean how self-destructive can you be?), but also insightful. I really appreciate the opportunity to have read this book (thank you Algonquin Books) and recommend this as an important read.

Review Date: 02/26/21
Publication Date: 02/16/21

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

There have been so many novels about the post-Stonewall years and the AIDs years, when gays were outcasts and dying. And now there are so many where gayness is just another trait, like eye color, drawing no criticism or curiosity at all. It's harder to find books about the in-between of those eras, where I consider myself: perspectives that have no real relationship with gayness being a crime but that are mystified by kids nowadays being able to have same-sex relationships in middle school. Both seem alien. This book targets that in-between. The extremes of past and present are romanticized and grappled with in a way that feels authentic to me. These are feelings I have felt and still feel.

I don't think this is a perfect book (the characters are very broad and there's some melodrama it could've cut) but it feels like a much-needed book, and I'm glad it exists.

[Dahlia]

I liked this book so much, and am still thinking about it days later. I'm not in the headspace to leave a coherent review, so for now I'm literally just gonna copy my tweets about it here like a nerd:

It's been four days since I read @ZMSalih1982's LET'S GET BACK TO THE PARTY and I can't stop thinking about it and how beautifully it captures shifts in the queer experience from generation to generation and ways in which grass looks greener on the other sides of those shifts.

I think it makes a particularly fascinating read for adults operating in the queer YA space, and how each protag relates to the teen secondary character works in conversation with our books. Also made me grateful for the few spectacular YAs focusing on queer history.

I also really love the way its bracketed by touchstone events in very modern queer history, one the height of joy and celebration and one the depth of sadness and mourning. How these events are theoretically communal but neither protag particularly is. Such an interesting study.

It's the kind of book that immediately made me think of whom I'd recommend it to and as a Person Who Does That a Lot, those books have such a special place in my heart and I *will* find a way to get it into those hands. Mark my words.

[Veronica (Honey Roselea Reads) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately will now have to add this short message at the beginning of every book with reviews of sorts. Please do not comment and be rude about me giving this book 1 stars or DNFing it. We all have our own opinions and I don't really want any hate or bullshit and racism, etc. or just shit from anyone for me not liking your favorite book. My opinion is my opinion so don't give me anything, I suggest you keep your disapproval to yourself I don't need this every single book I DNF or didn't like.

This is note is not specific to any book and will be added from now on (Jan 9, 2022) to every single one of my review, whether its a 5 star review or 1 star or DNF review


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Thank you to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for inviting me to read Let's Get Back to the Party and providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I have a review going up on my blog today February 16, 2021 at 10 AM CST.

Let's Get Back to the Party is the story of Sebastian Mote, a 30 year old professor who is single and envies his students that can live so freely. After meeting his old childhood friend, Oscar Burnham, he discovers the current gay culture and how, as they both get older, see the ever-changing world.

I did not finish Let's Get Back to the Party. I had been interested in Let's Get Back to the Party when first hearing about this but I found... [ continue reading ]

[Dennis Holland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got quite invested in this he said / he said - will they? / won’t they? struggle and examination of gay identity and the ways gay men present themselves. There is a lot of sadness and loneliness at this “party” but that atmosphere allowed me to quietly reflect on what it means to be a boy and a man.
“You’ll start to confuse the past for the present. You'll start wishing things were—which is the way they had to be to bring you to where you are now.”

[Miya (severe pain struggles, slower at the moment) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartbreaking but a good story. Not for children. I think it would make an amazing film.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started this book with an open mind, but reading this book was more difficult to get through. I was not too fond of the writing preference to have Sebastian sections did not include quotation marks to indicate when someone spoke, but Oscar sections used quotation for dialogue. As a reader, the quotation marks help us following the conversation and distinguish it from descriptions. It allows the reader to enjoy the story instead of increasing our concentration to realize a thought and what was spoken by the characters during conversations.

I also could not connect with the characters. Both Sebastian and Oscar just annoyed me, and I disliked them more as the book progressed. They appeared to be two whining men who wanted things to change, but they continued to live the same way, expecting a different outcome. The ending just left me lost. Was Oscar in the water the whole time, and the "moment" with Sebastian didn't really happen? The book ends with Oscar in the water yelling for help, so does that mean he eventually drowns? If anyone can explain the ending to me, I welcome it.

This book really was not for me. Maybe it will resonate with other readers better. I appreciated all the author's work for this debut book; it's not easy to write a novel. Thank you, NetGalley and Algonquin, for this free copy in exchange for my honest review.

Content Warnings: homophobia, fatphobia, suicide, child pornography, harassment of women, sex descriptions, death, alcohol abuse.

[Nursebookie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic read I enjoyed!

I found this story fascinating as Salih used the historical references about the Supreme Court marriage equality ruling as the basis and jumping off point of the story. This novel explores the identity of two gay men in our current society. Salih did a great job of painting a story about what lies between being closeted and then now being completely accepted, with the increased visibility in every part of our lives and in almost all cultures as well.

The writing of these two very different characters between Oscar and Sebastian, the readers learn about the struggles of not only these two gay men, but also what the LGBTQ community have been struggling with for many years. I found the writing impressive for a debut novel and found it compelling enough to be the thought provoking read I really appreciated.

I really enjoyed reading about the differing point of views on how they see themselves as adults and their gay cultural identity in this contemporary setting. I really enjoyed this one and please do check this out especially if you have enjoyed the novels of Rebecca Makkai and Claire Messud.

Thank you to Algonquin Books for my copy, and opinions are my own.

[Will Skrip · Rating 2 out of 5]

With clear voice, Zak Salih shows potential in his debut LET'S GET BACK TO THE PARTY, but inconsistent concepts and wildly unsavory principal characters sour its intriguing beginnings. Attempting to flush out a divide that exists in modern, young gay men, Salih does the most to draw Sebastian and Oscar's staunchly opposing gay-tenets in slapdash black and white. One looks forward, one looks back. One's on the apps, one isn't. One becomes fascinated with an older man, the other with a younger. It's rather dull, especially when they spend most of the novel repelled like mismatched magnet poles. To Salih's credit, the context of their relationship is original and could be compelling, but they aren't together long enough to ever truly find each other and figure it all out.

I appreciate the bold conceptual choices made here, but there are perhaps too many to execute any single one successfully. Correlating Sebastian's childhood with the art piece that triggers each memory, while fabulously conceived, goes absolutely nowhere. Each chapter is (too?) cleverly named for one of Sean Stokes' novels but only loosely (and unsophisticatedly) connects to its namesake's subject. The stakes, while sometimes provoking exciting beats, are rarely grounded in truth. And why create an alternative app in "Cruze," when it is so obviously just Grindr? It detracts from the circumstance of the novel, which is so specifically anchored between the very real LGBTQ+ hallmarks of 2015 and 2016: passing Marriage Equality, the election of Trump and the Pulse Nightclub attack.

I generally appreciate when authors push their readers to find empathy for unlikable protagonists, but I was particularly squicked out by how Arthur, at 17, was lusted after throughout the novel. The-underage-posing-as-of-age is a very real gay trope, but I'm not entirely sure why it is was a feature of this story. The teacher-student dynamic, which has been repeatedly used to weaponize the LGBTQ+ community, is thrown in somewhat haphazardly, and for no good purpose. It truly only makes Sebastian and Oscar that much more disgraceful (an impressive feat for Oscar in particular, who assaults a woman towards the beginning of the novel). Arthur could have easily been rewritten to be of-age, someone slightly younger, but still the contemporary of the two principal men, and served the exact same function.

It is obvious the Salih took some commendable risks but they ultimately eclipse the fruitful debate about whether the mainstream acceptance of queerness (especially as it pertains to marriage) has effectively neutered gay culture. I think there was great possibility here, but it unfortunately missed the mark.

[Troy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like I’ve been waiting for a book like this for a long time and I’m very glad it has arrived. This was a very enjoyable novel, broadly about contemporary gay life told through the lenses of two men, Sebastian and Oscar, who couldn’t be more opposite from one another on the gay personality spectrum. The narrative switches POV between these two characters, which is very effective in showing both of their lives to the reader.

I really appreciated the themes presented in this book: the difficulties of aging as a gay man, the complexity of choosing/not choosing heteronormative conformity, and inter-generational relationships among gay men. Author Zak Salih beautifully conveys these themes through both main characters. Sebastian only wants to find someone to love and settle down with, while on the other hand there is Oscar who does everything in his power to reject heteronormative expectations and domestic affairs such as getting married and having children. Presenting us with these polar opposites does well to show that there is no correct way to live as a gay man.

Both of these characters are immensely flawed, which made for a very interesting reading experience. The inner turmoil that both characters feel, as different as they are from one another, is almost heart wrenching to read about. Throughout the novel, happiness seems just out of reach for reasons unique to each of them. I was often frustrated with them and their choices, as they were both stuck in their self-destructive ways, but the transformation for them by the end of the novel is subtle, yet super rewarding.

I also love how the author ties in what are now historic events (US marriage equality in June of 2015) that help ground this story in reality and make it relevant in terms of what progress has been made for the contemporary gay community, as well as the problems we still face. This title has the potential to stay with readers for a long time after finishing.

Readers who enjoyed Cleanness by Garth Greenwell; The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai; and Real Life by Brandon Taylor will be drawn to this title. Also, readers who want an LGBTQ+ book that moves past coming out and is more focused on the complexities of gay life in modern society will like this book.

Thank you to Edelweiss+, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Althea · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5 Stars

This was a really interesting discussion on the yearning that many younger queer people have for the community and activist eras of the past, compared with the yearning that many queer adults have for the freedom that many queer teens and young people have nowadays. I think the two narrators did a fantastic job on this audiobook but ultimately this book was just okay for me - nothing amazing - though I did enjoy my time reading it and it was a great accompaniment to the frantic crocheting I spent last week doing!

Thanks to Alongquin Books/Workman Audio and Netgalley for an audiobook ARC in return for an honest review!

[katjaaa · Rating 2 out of 5]

turns out that just because a book is gay does not mean I will enjoy it

[Dmitry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Герои дебютного романа Салиха заняты непрекращающимся поиском гейского счастья, хотя и понимают его по-разному. Для Себастьяна — учителя старших классов, который испытывает влечение к своему ученику и завидует его беззаботной и открытой молодости — счастье в нормализации и растворении квирности в мейнстриме, в возможности быть “как все”. Он горячо приветствует решение Верховного суда об однополых браках (действие романа разворачивается в 2015 году), пусть и расстался недавно с партнером.

Оскар, напротив, резко не приемлет растворения гейской идентичности, утрату эксклюзивности гей-баров, куда натуралы захаживают, как к себе домой, и считает брак если не отжившим, то старомодно-гетеросексуальным институтом. Он ведет долгие разговоры с престарелым писателем-классиком гей-литаратуры (в ком угадывается то Эдмунд Уайт, то Джон Речи) о “золотом веке” и постепенно влюбляется в него.

Себастьян и Оскар — друзья детства с опытом неудачной влюбленности друг в друга. Спустя 20 лет они случайно встречаются на вечеринке. Обоим мужчинам уже за тридцать, они ищут любовь и смысл своей жизни. Оба отчаянно хотят свободы от одиночества и отверженности, но оба обижены на мир за то, что опыт молодого поколения геев оказался гораздо богаче их собственного. В течение следующих нескольких месяцев они продолжат натыкаться друг на друга в неожиданных локациях и попробуют наверстать упущенные годы.

Основная проблема романа — в модельных героях и нереалистичном сюжете со множеством чудесных совпадений, уместных в комедии, но не в драме об одиночестве. Герои Салиха производят впечатление не живых людей, а двух стереотипных лекал, двух противоположных точек дискуссии о гей-идентичности: мейнстримостремительной и мейнстримобежной. Они сталкиваются, обмениваются репликами и монологами, разбегаются, чтобы опять встретиться и опять попробовать убедить друг друга в собственной правоте. В итоге роман похож на кроссовер между фикшном и популярным социологическим сэлф-хелпом, где читателю предлагают набор тезисов на подумать и блеснуть в светской беседе. Впрочем, в Салихе всё же виден неплохой писатель с богатым языком, знанием не только американской, но и русской литературы (Оскар и старший писатель ведут беседы о Толстом и Достоевском), и умением вести непровисающее повествование, пусть от его памфлеточности и закатываются порою глаза.

[Jessica Haider · Rating 4 out of 5]

This debut novel is set in 2015 in the time just after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. Childhood friends Oscar and Sebastian run into each other at the wedding of a gay couple. The two men were best friends as kids but lost touch after Oscar and his family moved away. Both men are gay and they both have different feelings about the recent turn of events for LGBTQ+ Americans. Sebastian works as an English & Art History teacher at a high school, where he also supervises the LGBTQ student organization. In general he feels sad & lonely, having suffered a bad breakup recently. Sebastian is a little in awe and jealous of how much easier LGBTQ teens have it than when he was a teen. On the other hand, Oscar lives a bit more angry about recent events. He thinks gay men deciding to get married is a bit lame and just them trying to be more mainstream. He spends his nights pursuing hook-ups via apps or at clubs.

Both Oscar and Sebastian clearly want better connection with others and want to find their place in the world. They are past their youth and clearly into adulthood and neither seems sure what sort of life to live...what it means to be a gay man in modern society. Sebastian looks longingly at the life the LGBTQ teens at his school have while Oscar yearns for the crazy days of the 80s (which he was too young to live through as an adult).

The narrative alternates between Sebastian and Oscar's perspectives and in the audio book each part was done by a different narrator, each of whom was perfectly cast as Sebastian or Oscar. I really enjoyed this book and think it is an excellent debut novel. I will be keeping my eye on Zak Salih to see what else he publishes.


Thank you to the publisher for the audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Salih's debut novel explores a deep parallel duality between two gay childhood friends that cross paths at a wedding shortly after gay marriage becomes legal nationwide. There's Sebastian, a high school teacher that aches for domestic bliss, and there's Oscar, disgusted by how mainstream and tame his fellow gay men have become, feeling like sideshow entertainment to heteronormative society. While Sebastian finds himself intoxicated by a student's open, free, and innocent gay identity in the modern era, Oscar becomes attached to an author twice his age, glorifying his liberated sexual conquests over the decades, desperate to replicate and live through him him.

The stark contrast between these men and their ideals is brilliantly written, and every once in awhile I found myself tripping over sentences that packed a gut punch. While Let's Get Back to the Party only takes place a few years in the past, the turmoil of the last four years makes this book feel historical-- something I'm sure that readers will relate to, should they be fortunate enough to pick up this introspective, emotional roller coaster of a novel.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got completely swept up in this tale of two thirtysomething gay men, former boyhood pals, one of whom is melancholy, introverted and cerebral, the other extroverted and sexually promiscuous. Though set in the late 2010's, the story probes how the different eras of post-Stonewall queer life have reverberated for modern day gays, from the wild and wooly sexual liberation of the 1970s to the dark days of AIDS and the more recent inexorable progression-or-is-it-regression towards assimilation (the book opens with both our protagonists at a too-fancy gay wedding). Zak Salih is a wonderful, thoughtful writer, and his debut is a keeper. I know I'll be reading it again.

[Vito · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to like this book more but it ultimately falls flat. The ending alone seems undeserving and unexpected.

My biggest gripe lies with the teacher and student “relationship” between Sebastian and Arthur - it’s super cringey and uncomfortable.

Oscar’s side of the story (and his friendship with Sean) is the saving grace though it’s far from perfect.

While I’ve seen similar stories done better, I am excited to see what’s next from the author - support queer writers!

[Rohan · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's no right way to be queer. I would love to a read a book like this told from others members of our community.

[Christi Flaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had elements that were very important and well done, the look at the ever-evolving LGBTQ+ community, acceptance, legal rights, etc. However, I found myself struggling with this book. I did not like either of the main characters. They both had obsessive personalities and serious flaws. While I don't have to love characters to love a book in this case I needed to find someone to root for or a story to cling to and was unable to find either throughout.

Oscar and Sebastian knew each other in their formative years and became best friends for the few years they spent together. They met again in college but Oscar had forgotten (?) about Sebastian. They meet again at a wedding in their mid-30s and this is where the story takes off from. Sebastian has pined for Oscar through the years and Oscar can't seem to be bothered to remember Sebastian even exists.
Oscar is obsessed with living his life to the fullest, sleeping with as many men as possible and finds a famous gay author to cling to. The author, Sean, has written about his wild and crazy lifestyle bedding as many men as possible and becomes an idol for Oscar.
Sebastian is on the other end of the spectrum with this and is obsessed with finding his person. He ends up clinging to an unhealthy ideology of one of his new students.

The book is raw and gritty and (I think) meant to make the reader uncomfortable at certain parts. I am not a prude reader, but this book took me a little off-guard and I'm not certain it was in a good way.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

I keep going back and forth between three and four stars for this. I enjoyed reading it but didn't find it particularly deep.

I think part of my reaction is due to the unexamined privilege on display. The fact that cis gay men get to assimilate and have that conversation at all puts them way ahead of trans and non-binary people, who are completely absent from this story. Not even a single passing mention I can recall. Pretty jarring for a dedicated LGBTQ book.

[Doug Reyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simplest explanation: this is the story of two gay men, befriended as children, whose lives intersect periodically again in the future, through the movements of the microcosm that is the gay community of any city. When we are introduced to Sebastian and Oscar, they seem to exemplify opposing viewpoints of the assimilationist question. Sebastian yearns for a quiet partnered life away from the tumult of any gay ‘scene’ whether physical or online; while Oscar revels in a life of parties and hook-ups, bitter at the gay spaces disappearing and being overrun by the straight world. It’s apt that they meet again, after a decade of separation, at a gay wedding. Each has, of course, a different opinion of the proceedings.
Through the course of the book, each man becomes fascinated by other men, who seem to typify the experiences of other gay generations. Oscar meets an aging author famous for fictionalizing his sexual exploits, and of course idolizes him. Sebastian finds he has a gay student seemingly born comfortable with his sexuality and unafraid, and he envies the teenager this natural ease. There is a theme of gay legacy here.

Anyone hoping for a plot driven book will be disappointed, not to say that nothing happens, because oh they do, but this novel operates more as a character study of two different and flawed men trying to figure it all out. Also, I wouldn’t think it fair to expect these characters to be symbolic of a supposed duality of the gay community. They are too finely drawn, Sebastian in particular.

About the writing... I was initially thrown by the change in style corresponding to the change in character perspective. Sebastian’s passages are written with speech embedded, without quotation marks, in long uninterrupted paragraphs. Oscar’s are written using traditional punctuation and paragraph breaks. I’m sure this was intended not just to differentiate between the characters but also to contribute in some way to a statement about the personalities of these men. I got over it. It’s neat, but I don’t think it was necessary. The writing is strong enough that it didn’t need a gimmick. Had the voices been more different, then maybe this would have been more effective. As it is, the characters share enough of a sense of thoughtful honestly about themselves that the tone and voice of the narrative is fairly consistent. And for the record, It is a tone I loved.

I found this novel compulsively readable. The writing is somehow lush but quietly so. The device of using paintings by the masters as metaphors and distractions in Sebastian’s stream of consciousness was truly well done. I am a reader that reads for the beauty of language, and I’m a sucker for a well written sentence. What a pleasure to read this and find that the beauty wasn’t in the sentences but in the longer passages; not in the individual brushstrokes, but in the combination of many.

[Apoorv Moghe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let's Get Back to the Party | Zak Salih | 23Mar2021
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One-Sentence Review
This is how you make a mockery of a very relevant subject matter!
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Published/Pages : 16Feb2021 | 288 pages
Location: Washington DC, New York City (New York), Cleveland (Ohio), North Carolina
Genre: Realistic Fiction, Contemporary, LGBTQ+

Characters: Sebastian Mote, Oscar Burnham, Arthur
TW: homophobia, harassment of women, suicide
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Rating Analysis

Premise: 7/10
Introduction: 5/10
Number of Characters: 4/10
Character Development: 2/10
Backup History for the Story: 4/10
Fiction Quality: 4/10
Pace of the Story: 4/10
Dramatic Effect: 4/10
Climax: 4/10
Impact it Made: 4/10

TOTAL: 42/100 (4.2 Stars = 2.1 Stars ~ ★★)
--------------------------------
Review
Everything about this book is half-assed! The commitment towards saying something, the reasons the characters do the things they do, the narrative flow in which the story progresses, the discussion that this book could potentially engage the readers in - it is all half-assed! To the point, that I almost don't see the purpose of this book in the grand scheme of things.

The stereotyping in this book is almost toxic. With characters so clichéd and the writing so blasé, its almost comical, but it surely isn't funny! It feels like the book is written to cater to the heterosexual imaginations of a homosexual life - and I worry that this is going to pander to the same-old notions that circle around people from the LGBTQ+ community.

We are (supposedly) talking about issues faced by middle-aged gay men, but all I heard throughout the book were two whiny, crabby, broadly stroked teenagers instead of people in the mid-thirties understanding the complexity of life, especially that of an LGBTQ+ person in the society. Where is the depth? Where is the deep dive? Where is the actual conversation? Young Adult books have more substance than this pseudo-intellectual piece of literature!

There are truly some very interesting points raised in the book like feeling left-out with the changing dynamic of the society's acceptance of the gay community, or not wanting to take part in the "traditional heterosexual" idea of marriage, kids etc., apart from working through the constant fear of loneliness and not having a support system as life passes you by. Had Mr. Salih even spent half as much energy on expatiating on these topics instead of the "drama queen/sad queen" angle of these two main characters, the book would have hit its mark.

Anyway, (hopefully) there is always a next!
This party was, unfortunately, a bust!

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