Andrew Martin with Andrew Palmer — 'Down Time: A Novel'

Third Place Books welcomes Andrew Martin for the release of his new novel , a funny and lovably louche novel about five friends growing older, if not always up, by the author of "pitch-perfect slacker" classics Early Work and Cool for America. Andrew Palmer, author of , joins in conversation.

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"Andrew Martin's latest novel is deliriously good, with some of the best writing about being in your 30s and surrounded by writers. Exceedingly clever, with a menagerie of semi-despicable, horny, complex characters, Down Time is a rebuttal to the misconception that a decent COVID-novel does not exist." —Spencer Ruchti, author events manager

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A terribly funny and lovably louche novel about five friends growing older, if not always up, from Andrew Martin, author of Early Work and Cool for America.

Without Cassandra, Aaron would probably be dead. Fortunately, she won’t leave him—despite the drinking, flirting, solipsism, armchair socialism, overspending, infidelity, catastrophic depression, and disparate but increasingly frequent spells of drug- and booze-addled debauchery. Unfortunately, she might be reaching the end of her rope.

Cass and Aaron, like the other neurotic, ambivalent intellectuals in their orbit, are getting older. There’s Malcolm, with his own alcoholism and marginally more successful writing career; his partner, Violet, a nurse with little patience for both; Antonia, a teaching fellow whose book about ecocide may get her tenure at a prestigious university near Harvard Square—yes, that one. When Sam, a charming trust-fund punk at the center of this loose network, dies suddenly, and a global pandemic takes hold, all five must contend with the lives they’ve made: their desires and disappointments, habits and hang-ups, pathologies and addictions, and the possibilities of making art and being good as the earth whirls to its end.

Down Time marks the delightful return of Andrew Martin, the author of the pitch-perfect slacker classics Early Work and Cool for America. Compulsively readable and contagiously intelligent, this is a wryly comic social novel of settling down, selling out, growing up, and getting out that turns a terribly funny and hyper-literate eye on our most desperately guarded ambitions: to love and be loved, to know and be known, to stay sane, if only just.

Andrew Martin is the author of the novel Early Work, a New York Times Notable book of 2018, and the story collection Cool for America, longlisted for the 2020 Story Prize. His fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper's, McSweeney's, and elsewhere, and his criticism appears frequently in The New York Review of Books. He teaches in Brooklyn and New Hampshire, and lives in New York City with his family. (Photo credit: Tom Collicott)

Andrew Palmer is the author of The Bachelor, a novel. His writing has appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, McSweeney's, Slate, The Paris Review Daily, Literary Hub and The New Yorker online. He grew up in Iowa and lives in Seattle with his partner and their dog.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.

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