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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
In Brad Graber's Friends for A Season, after eighty-three-year-old former novelist Helena Greenblatt collapses alone inside her Phoenix home, she leaves the isolation of her gated community and moves into Ventana, a retirement residence connected to Arizona State University, where older residents live alongside college life. There, she becomes responsible for Zak Andrews, a deaf university student whose emergency ear surgery cannot proceed unless an adult supervises his recovery after his parents reject him for being gay. Helena expects a temporary obligation, but caring for Zak draws her into his life completely. Through financial uncertainty, strained friendships, and fear of permanent hearing loss, Zak becomes increasingly aware that Helena’s independence is threatened by recurring dizzy spells and questions about her mental health after discovering Helena speaks with her dead mother, Ruthie. Together, they face a system determining who deserves autonomy and who loses the right to decide their own future.
Brad Graber’s Friends for a Season depicts the beautiful crossing of lives between Helena and Zak after medical emergencies place them inside each other’s daily routines. Graber does an excellent job of balancing the heartening with the heartbreaking, whether it is Zak waking after surgery believing he will remain deaf forever, or Helena secretly leaving assisted living only to come back to a shocking discovery. I love Helena, fleshed out as a woman who is never performative or self-righteous, and has a very sincere concern for a rejected Zak, who still wants parental acceptance. I half expected Zak to be a bit blustery toward Helena, but the author both surprised and pleased me in subverting that expectation, and his advocating for Helena's dignity is really beautiful. The prose makes the settings visual, from a rooftop terrace overlooking Phoenix lights beneath desert night skies, to a polished dining room lined with glass walls, patterned carpeting, and carefully arranged flowers. Well written and immersive, readers who enjoy intergenerational fiction centered upon aging, sexuality, friendship, and late-life reinvention will adore this novel. Very highly recommended.
