We Should Not Be Friends

From the best-selling author of The End of Your Life Book Club-a warm, funny, irresistible book that follows an improbable and life-changing friendship over the course of forty years.

In his last year of university, Will thought he knew everyone he cared to know. A perm-haired, out, gay young man, working at an AIDS helpline in the early days of the crisis, Will found friends and community amongst the theatre students, artists and writers. He also knew who he wanted to avoid: the jocks. Wearing sporty clothes and moving in boisterous packs, the jocks seemed to be a different species entirely, one Will might encounter only at his own peril.

All this changed dramatically when Will was brought into a secret society at Yale, aimed to bring together a group of opposites. On his first day, he was faced with Chris Maxey - a physically imposing, loud, star wrestler who seemed to be uncomfortable around Will and embodied everything he disliked and feared. But through months of mandated dinners, and many beers, the two swapped life-stories and forged an unexpected bond that became a ballast in each other’s lives for forty years.

From New Haven to New York City, from Hong Kong and London to a remote Bahamian island-through marriages and a divorce, triumphs and devastating losses-We Should Not Be Friends tracks an extraordinary friendship through decades of challenge and change.

A real-life The Breakfast Club story, Schwalbe’s marvelous new work is a testament to the miracle of human connection, if only we see past our differences.