Waiting on a Friend by Natalie Adler

[I wrote this on Facebook and Instagram. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I publish it here in slightly edited form].

Book # 20 of 2026 is a wrap:  Waiting on a Friend by Natalie Adler.

First off, this has been the most fruitful reading year I have had in an extremely long time. I don't have a great explanation for it, other than I've tried to be more open and adventurous in my book choices, and this strategy has paid off.

Waiting on a Friend is another book that crossed my desk at work and it looked intriguing enough to   take a chance on it and place a hold. However, as it sometimes goes with this, when it was my turn, I was already knee-deep in another book. I didn't get to Waiting on a Friend until three days before the due date. Thanfully, the novel grabbed me right away and I returned it "only" three days late.

The book takes place in NYC in 1984. Our narrator is Renata, a (self-described) queer 29-year-old vintage clothing store employee who, when the book begins, has just lost her best friend and roommate Mark to an AIDS-related illness. In fact, this being the early years of the AIDS crisis, Renata is losing other friends and acquaintances to AIDS. I know this sounds bleak, but this book has plenty of humor and warmth...and a supernatural element...

...Renata can see ghosts, or perhaps more accurately--the spirits of the departed. This ability causes Renata more stress than satisfaction...and the ghost/spirit of her friend Mark--the one she'd actually like to commune with--is nowhere to be seen.

Added to the mix is a nefarious "ghostbusters"-like  company called Manhattan Remediation, which makes money eliminating paranormal "residue" from vacated apartments in NYC--many of these the former homes of AIDS victims and their evicted partners/roommates.

[It seems that the world of Waiting on a Friend is one in which the film Ghostbusters does not exist. Anyone who was alive in 1984 remembers how immensely popular that movie was that summer. If Ghostbusters existed in this novel's version of 1984, the characters would inevitably compare Manhattan Remediation to Ghostbusters].

On the surface, Waiting on a Friend might sound outlandish, but Adler does a wonderful job evoking the place and time period, as well as the anxiety and terror of the early days of HIV/AIDS. She also creates a vivid cast of characters that the reader grows to love. Many of these people are in the '80s New York gay community. They have been ostracized and/or disowned by their own families and the community they build amongst themselves is what saves them. 

Waiting on a Friend is simply excellent. As of today, it's one of the best books I've read this year. It's a good thing I didn't get scared off by the due date, give up on it, and return it without cracking it open.

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