AMONG FRIENDS

A subtle, keenly intelligent, psychologically deft—and deeply grim—portrait of friendship, marriage, and parenthood among the New York upper crust.

Emerson and Amos met and bonded three decades ago in college, and their families—wives Retsy and Claire, teenage daughters Sophie and Anna—seem happily entangled, mutually supportive. As the novel begins, they've assembled at Emerson and Retsy's country house to celebrate Emerson's 52nd birthday. But tensions simmer beneath the surface: between the men, within the marriages, even in the relationship between the daughters, which has entered the awkwardness of late adolescence and may or may not survive. In a "friendly" tennis match against Amos, Emerson suffers an ankle injury that, as a memento mori and a reminder of ancient rivalry, exacerbates the tensions both within and without. Before the weekend is over, a spontaneous act of violence and violation will threaten not only to destroy the long friendship but to jolt both families from the comfortable orbits of their privileged, on-the-surface untroubled lives. It's a prospect Claire in particular seems ill-prepared for. This is the kind of book Tom Wolfe used to write, and debut novelist Ebbott definitely has the talent and brio to carry it off. "Unflinching" is a label often applied to such works, but that word's not nearly strong enough for what happens here; this is a very smart book, but at its center is a ruthlessness that can be hard to look at. Whether that's a compliment or not may depend on the reader.

Ambitious, penetrating, occasionally brilliant—and a little cold.