Ask Me Again
23 January 2025Synopsis
One of The New Yorker's Best Books of the Year
'A finely drawn portrait of the kind of friendship we rarely see in contemporary fiction' - Jonathan Lee, The Guardian
How much knowledge do you need in order to know someone?
As her grandmother is dying, sixteen-year-old Eva wanders the halls of a hospital. There, she spots Jamie. Despite having little in common, from this chance-encounter stems a life-changing platonic love.
She is sixteen, living in middle-class Brooklyn; he is the same age, but from the super-rich of Upper Manhattan. She’s observant, cautious, eager to seem normal; he’s bold, mysterious, eccentric. Eva’s family is warm and welcoming, but Jamie avoids going home to his.
As Eva goes off to university and falls in and out of love, Jamie drops out and is drawn towards radical experiments in politics and religion. Their separate spheres seem to be spiralling away from each other, but it soon becomes clear that they are both circling the same question: how do you define yourself and your beliefs in a divided and unjust world?
Written with precision and immense wit, Ask Me Again is a journey of intimacy across time. A love story of sorts, this coming-of-age novel explores how relationships can define us, change us and point us towards futures we might not have imagined for ourselves.
A Finalist for The Center For Fiction First Novel Prize
‘Beautiful . . . Clare Sestanovich is a writer of disarming radiance’ – Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness
‘A deeply philosophical novel, which surprises and delights at every turn’ – Jenny Offill, author of Weather
Details
23 January 2025
9781529053609Reviews
Pulled along by the shimmering subtleties of Sestanovich’s prose, we track our boy and girl into adulthood . . . a finely drawn portrait of the kind of friendship we rarely see in contemporary fictionJonathan Lee, The Guardian
Sestanovich’s allusive tone and incisive prose recall the best of RooneyMichael Arditti, Spectator
Ask Me Again is a beautifully observed and deeply philosophical novel, which surprises and delights at every turnJenny Offill, author of Weather
Rigorous, intensely observed, and brimming with the sort of elusive revelations that form the heartbeat of a life, Sestanovich’s novel debut demonstrates a tremendous gift at rendering the texture of love, faith, and heartbreak with both subtlety and force. In her masterful hands, relationships condense, turn acute, and unfurl with symphonic grace across the individual arcs of characters that you can’t help but carry with you long afterwardAlexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun
