‘Heartwarming yet bittersweet… Wonderful on the power of friendship and how it’s your friends who know you best’ Daily Mail

‘A truly great millennial novel’ New York Times Book Review newsletter

‘A big, beautiful novel about what friendship means as we get older’ LitHub

‘A truly great millennial novel’ New York Times Book Review newsletter

‘A big, beautiful novel about what friendship means as we get older’ LitHub

‘A bracingly honest and exhilarating novel' Kimberly King Parsons, author of We Were the Universe

‘A big-hearted and daring novel from one of our finest creative and critical minds’ Jonathan Escoffery, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of If I Survive You

‘A powerfully intimate portrait of female friendship’ Kimberly King Parsons, author of We Were the Universe

‘White Lotus with more sincerity and heart’ Los Angeles Times

*****

As undergrads, Gregg, Reba, Hillary, Bella, and Carson formed the kind of rare bond that university brochures promise – friendship that lasts a lifetime. Two decades later, the women are spread across the country but remain firmly linked through their ever-active group chat. They’ve made it through COVID and childbirth and midcareer challenges, but no one can anticipate what’s coming next.

The five women converge on Palm Springs for a long overdue reunion: Gregg, a progressive Texas legislator, is facing a huge decision about her political future. Reba is deep in IVF treatments while caring for her aging parents and navigating a San Francisco she hardly recognizes. Hillary’s medical career is going great – but at home, her husband’s struggles with addiction have derailed their life. In New York City, Bella faces the biggest case in her career as a litigator while her home life crumbles around her, and across the river in Brooklyn, Carson is working on a new novel as well as forging a possible relationship with the father she’s never met.

Twenty years into their shared friendship, the stakes are higher than ever. With wit, empathy and heart, Clutch asks how much we can give to our friends and our families, and what space we can save for ourselves.

*****

Details

ISBN13: 9780008844875
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 384
Edition:
Publication Date: 01 Sep 2026
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication City, Country: United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 23.4(H)x15.3(L)x3.4(W)
Weight (gm):

Author Biography

Emily Nemens's first novel, The Cactus League, was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. From 2018 to 2021, she edited The Paris Review, winning the American Society of Magazine Editors' Award for Fiction, and producing the second season of the journal's acclaimed podcast. As an illustrator, she has collaborated with Harvey Pekar and published her work in The New Yorker; her watercolor portraits of every woman in congress were featured across the web and on national TV. Her short stories have appeared in Esquire, n+1, The Iowa Review, Hobart, and The Gettysburg Review.

Reviews

‘A truly great millennial novel’ New York Times Book Review newsletter
‘I rooted for these women, loved them… What I wouldn’t give to know that my friends and I will end up OK, to have someone with Nemens’ feral intelligence mapping our paths’ New York Times Book Review
‘A big, beautiful novel about what friendship means as we get older’ LitHub
‘A sharp, heartfelt celebration of modern friendship… through bold, inventive leaps, Nemens’ prose dazzles, elevating the group chat, and the friend bond, to something sacred and vital. A big-hearted and daring novel from one of our finest creative and critical minds’ Jonathan Escoffery, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of If I Survive You
‘White Lotus with more sincerity and heart’ Los Angeles Times
‘Like Mary McCarthy’s The Group, Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything, and even top-tier Sex and the City episodes, this story casts a smart, sociological eye on ambitious American women’s experiences while also being a compulsive page-turner’ The Atlantic, Six Books That Simply Must Be Talked About
‘Impressive… [a] gut-punch climax, rewarding the reader who’s paying attention to all the details’ Kirkus
‘A powerfully intimate portrait of female friendship… A bracingly honest and exhilarating novel about the messy, complicated and essential work of showing up for the people who matter the most’ Kimberly King Parsons, author of We Were the Universe
‘Finally, we have a collective noun for a group of aging female friends, and only the great Emily Nemens could’ve declared it. Clutch is hilarious, philosophical, anthropological, polyphonic… These pages made me laugh and broke my heart’ Hilary Leichter, author of Terrace Story