The Wilderness - by Angela Flournoy (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITIC CIRCLES AWARD FOR FICTION

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION

LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE

Named one of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year

One of Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of the Year"

Named a Best of the Year by The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly, Vogue, Elle, Time, Kirkus Reviews, Electric Literature, Town & Country, Alta Journal, NPR, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Book Riot, Audible

"Flournoy has delivered a future classic--the kind of novel that generations to come will read to understand the nuances and peculiarities of this time." -- Harper's Bazaar

An era-defining novel about five Black women over the course of their twenty-year friendship, as they move through the dizzying and sometimes precarious period between young adulthood and midlife--in the much-anticipated second book from National Book Award finalist Angela Flournoy.

Desiree, January, Monique, and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning. Of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood, and of big-city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness, that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood--overwhelming, mysterious, and full of freedom and consequences--swoops in and stays.

Desiree is estranged from her sister Danielle, and the two nurse bitter family wounds in different ways. January's got a relationship with a "good" man she feels ambivalent about, even after her surprise pregnancy. Monique, a librarian and aspiring blogger, finds unexpected online fame after calling out the university where she works for its plans to whitewash fraught history. And Nakia is trying to get her restaurant off the ground, without relying on the largesse of her upper middle-class family who wonder aloud if she should be doing something better with her life.

As these friends move from the late 2000's into the late 2020's, from young adults to grown women, they must figure out what they mean to one another--amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability, and the increasing volatility of modern American life.

The Wilderness is Angela Flournoy's masterful and kaleidoscopic follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut The Turner House. A generational talent, she captures with disarming wit and electric language how the most profound connections over a lifetime can lie in the tangled, uncertain thicket of friendship.

Review Quotes

"Astonishing.... The book's shifting perspectives trace these women as they mature and negotiate tensions within themselves and with one another, all while the world is tumbling ever more precipitously toward hell. Think: if Waiting to Exhale were also about the difficulty of breathing in the Anthropocene amid frequent wildfires and unpredictable political weather.... Transcendent." - New York Times Book Review

"Flournoy has delivered a future classic--the kind of novel that generations to come will read to understand the nuances and peculiarities of this time." - Harper's Bazaar

"This novel is a triumph." - Los Angeles Times

"[An] expansive and intimate novel.... This is not your generic book club selection, celebrating four friends living, laughing, loving. But if you want a ruminating, clear-eyed look at friendship as a means of survival, this is it.... Flournoy marches away from judgment or other people's dreams in this galvanizing and sustaining portrait of friendship." - Boston Globe

"An impressive feat." - Vulture

"A beautifully-written novel." - The Root

"Angela Flournoy's vivid second novel, The Wilderness, treats friendship with the dignity and fascination it deserves." - Washington Post

"A rangy novel, crisscrossing the continent to trace the fates of five friends as they navigate relationships, career pivots and entrenchments, and the loss of or estrangement from family. The Wilderness uses social events (recent racial reckonings, the pandemic) as material but has a more seasoned perspective than that of novels written in their immediate wake. The gestation of this book seems to have served it well in that respect, giving it a wisdom--worn lightly and with humor--on the promise and reality of historic inflection points and how a tightly knit group might respond to them differently." - Vogue in its "The Best Books of 2025 So Far" Round-up

"Will especially resonate with anyone who has eked out a modicum of socioeconomic security despite entering adulthood during the Great Recession and is now at the stage of midlife when people begin to seriously take stock - in light of their mortality, yes, but also against their youthful aspirations to have a measurable impact on the world.... Flournoy demonstrates great skill in developing and balancing an ensemble cast of characters, but with an even more intimate knowledge of these women." - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"An incisive, idealistic novel.... The Wilderness asks readers to celebrate the power of close adult friendships, not as something that peaks during the start of adulthood, but as something that becomes increasingly important later in life." - Minnesota Star Tribune

"It's easy to marvel at Flournoy's precision with character, the heart of the novel, but it's the book's hard look at social and political realities that give it its teeth.... Elegant and unsettling, this novel evades the expected at every turn." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Flournoy's pages radiate with intelligence as her characters attempt to shape their lives on their own terms. It's a knockout." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Expertly conveys the power of lifelong friendships that can feel closer even than familial bonds. Their friendship comforts and fortifies the women as they navigate the perilous, thorny, messy wilderness of modern adulthood. Flournoy is a talented writer, and this will be a good book club pick for fans of Brit Bennett, Terry McMillan, and Jacqueline Woodson." - Library Journal (starred review)

"We follow these vividly drawn women through the recent past and near future, exploring their friendship dynamics as they journey through life's significant changes and cope with heartbreaking loss. Flournoy is an immersive writer, describing the interiority of her characters and where their lives take place with striking detail and insight.... An absorbing, uplifting, and poignant story of community and deep connection." - Booklist (starred review)

"In this delicately crafted yet undeniably political slice-of-life novel, Angela Flournoy has put her finger on the cultural pulse of the past two decades.... Flournoy is a master of nuance, and the true joy of The Wilderness is getting to experience her protagonists' thoughts as they handle quotidian problems--social discomfort, jealousy, conflict avoidance--and the minor strains introduced to friendship due to differing sexual orientations, socioeconomic statuses and mental health conditions." - BookPage

"Bursting with charm, humor, wise insights and complex relationships, Angela Flournoy's new novel, The Wilderness, dazzles.... A powerful saga about how some of life's most profound and heart-mending relationships are friendships. - Women's World

"The Wilderness arrives like a miracle. Here is the novel I'm always waiting for, one which captures and explains and deepens the world around me. These women, these friends -- in their grief and loss, their dedication and their communion -- are so achingly real it's hard to let them go. A book of ideas, gorgeously written with clear-sighted vision by one of the wisest, most talented authors working today. Angela Flournoy's The Wilderness is a book to get lost in." - Justin Torres, author of Blackouts, winner of the National Book Award

"The Wilderness is a wonderfully ambitious novel that follows five women throughout decades of friendship, as they struggle to find purpose and belonging in their rapidly-gentrifying cities. Weaving through time, Angela Flournoy explores the complexity of friendship, family, and home in a voice that is expansive yet intimate, humorous yet devastating. I loved this book." - Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half and The Mothers

"Angela Flournoy is singular in how she renders the complicated solidarity that exists between friends. In The Wilderness, there is deep tenderness, room for the grayer areas of experience, for contradiction, ambivalence and the right to be lost." - Raven Leilani, author of Luster

"All the best novels about friendship are invitations to count yourself among them, and The Wilderness is no exception; the joys and the sorrows of this book are multiplied because they are shared. Flournoy has a long-lens talent, capable of spanning great distances while keeping her characters in crisp, but always compassionate, focus, as they face the changing pressures and realities of growing up. The result is both portrait and panorama of contemporary American life." - Eleanor Catton, author of The Luminaries and Birnam Wood

"Sometimes a book comes along that doesn't just capture the zeitgeist--the exact feeling of being a particular kind of person in a particular period of time--but spins it. The Wilderness takes twenty-first-century black womanhood on a wild ride, and just keeps getting wilder. A triumphant whirlwind of a novel." - Namwali Serpell, author of The Furrows

"A masterful work about 20 years of friendship between Black women, who are every bit a family as well.... The novel shares their lives in dazzling sections that speed toward an ending that will break your heart. (I highly recommend the audiobook version.)" - Book Riot

"A nonlinear, complex story that is loving, tragic, funny and thought-provoking, The Wilderness showcases Flournoy as a fearless writer who creates richly nuanced characters, revealing their raw emotional lives and the deep bonds that connect them. It's a must-read." - NPR