Book Discussion Group is Every 4th Saturday of the Month, 11:00 am

No RVSP Needed, just show up or join on (Meeting ID: 275 139 4844 and Pass code: 076609)

This month’s selection: Four Squares by Bobby Finger

In 1992, on his thirtieth birthday, Artie Anderson meets the man who will change his life. Artie spends his days at a tedious advertising job, finding relief in the corner of New York City he can call his own, even as the queer community is still being ravaged by HIV. But when his birthday celebration brings Artie and his friends to his favorite bar, a chance encounter with Abe, an uptight lawyer and Artie’s opposite in almost every way, pushes Artie to want, and to ask for, more for himself.

Thirty years later, Artie is stunned when Halle and Vanessa, Abe’s daughter and ex-wife, announce they are moving across the country. Artie has built a lovely, if small, life, but their departure makes Artie realize that he might be lonelier than he previously thought. When a surprising injury pushes Artie into the hands of GALS, the local center for queer seniors, a rambunctious group of elders insists on taking him under their wing. What follows will open up Artie’s world in ways previously unimaginable.

Alternating between both timelines, Four Squares is an intimate look at what it means to find community at any age and a touching meditation on the aftershocks of both love and grief. Stretching across the 1990s and the present day, the book is an intimate and profound look at what it means to create community and the lasting impressions even the most fleeting relationships can leave.