Description

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

‘Moving. Salted with intelligence and empathy’ New York Times Book Review
‘A page-turner’ New Yorker
‘Really shines’ San Francisco Chronicle
‘Gorgeous’ Sebastian Junger

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Imagine a secret society which pairs you with your polar opposite.
You meet regularly.
What would you talk about?
Could you become friends?

Will is bookish, quiet, gay, manning AIDS helplines.
Maxey is loud, a wrestler, a Jock, intent on a military life.
But paired together – over dinner, beers, pool games – they forge an extraordinary and resilient bond.

We Should Not Be Friends is an account of their odd-couple relationship, its ups and downs, twists and turns, the misunderstandings and the trust built over forty turbulent years.

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‘A rare view of male friendship . . . succeeds because Maxey comes across as a great character, a warm and devoted friend’ NPR

‘Schwalbe has an uncanny ability to use his personal experience as a springboard for universal truths’ Los Angeles Times

‘A charming read with plenty of surprises. Celebrates not only an unlikely friendship, but the strange turns a life can take’ Wall Street Journal

‘Schwalbe’s memoir shines. Written like a true friend’ Daily Mail

Publisher Review

One of the most important - and noble - human qualities is our ability to bond with people with whom we have absolutely nothing in common. It's pure fraternal love, entirely for its own sake. Will Schwalbe has written a gorgeous book on exactly this topic . . . what a pleasure to read about a human trait that might one day save, rather than destroy, the human race -- Sebastian Junger Schwalbe's memoir shines . . . Written like a true friend * Daily Mail * Moving * New York Times * We Should Not Be Friends focuses on the improbable, lifelong, life-changing-dare I say life-saving-bond between two men who met by chance in college with nothing in common and everything to teach one another. Here is a deeply compelling story that is uniquely their own-yet grows throughout the book to contain all the trials of finding one's way in an America that is, like these two men and their unlikely but important connection, constantly changing. This marvelous, warm, life-affirming book gave me a fuller understanding of the friendships that have sustained my life, and will make readers fiercely appreciative of their own chosen family. So many pages throughout human history have been devoted to romantic love, how wonderful to read a book about that other massively important emotion, the love of friendship * Isaac Fitzgerald * We Should Not Be Friends is a funny, warm, brutally honest and entertaining as it is profound. It's unlike any memoir I've ever read * Louise Penny * Reading this beautifully written and generous book, you will find yourself thinking of your own friendships and the greatest gifts we can give one another: listening deeply and taking the risk of becoming - and offering - our true selves * Dani Shapiro *