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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 doctor 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.
"Martin writes about his characters with a mix of affection and bemusement...He has an impressive psychological insight...Crucially, this is also a very funny novel...Wonderfully charming...Another impressive book by one of the country's most talented authors of comic fiction." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Though stacked with witty observations, this novel, much like its cast, lacks direction." —Publishers Weekly
"Moving and funny and gorgeously written. For all its aching sadness, Down Time is a thrill to read, the sentences somehow bold and vulnerable all at once. I'll say it: Martin has written The Corrections for his generation." ―Ed Park, author of Same Bed Different Dreams
"Down Time is a beautiful, weird, pervy, funny novel about everything that happens when it feels like nothing is happening. Andrew Martin has managed to capture the simultaneously absurd and moving nature of the present. So many moments made me laugh out loud while also thinking 'my god, this is so sad.' I loved this book!" ―Halle Butler, author of Banal Nightmare and The New Me
This information about Down Time was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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 essays and stories have appeared frequently in The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, and Harper's, as well as in The Yale Review, The Atlantic, McSweeney's, The Times Book Review and elsewhere. He teaches in Brooklyn and New Hampshire, and lives in New York City with his family.
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