What Gentlemen Do - by Todd Babiak (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A lost young man's sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking attempt at navigating adulthood, online culture, and friendship in this coming-of-age story for our times.

Waylon Gans did not mean to start a riot on the university campus. He was only there because he wanted to be in the audience while one of his heroes, Josh Modley, recorded a live podcast.

The problem, as Waylon sees it, is that he is trash: he lives in Walleye, a town everyone wants to leave; his parents are losing their home due to a bad cryptocurrency investment; his job at the used bookstore is a dead-end; Derby, the love of his life, cannot even look at him; and he's worried he's falling back under podcaster Josh Modley's influence and the comfort of blaming everything on the "feminists, globalists, and communists." Half-heartedly pursuing an associate degree, Waylon is enrolled in Philosophy 118: Introduction to Stoicism. He becomes entranced by these teachings.

In a voice that is by turns comic and unusually wise, What Gentlemen Do is an unvarnished look at a young man wrestling with the consequences of his actions, the shakiness of his beliefs, and jeopardizing important relationships. Waylon tries to dismantle his own perception of truth and to build something meaningful in the process.

Review Quotes

Praise for What Gentlemen Do

2026 Quill & Quire Summer Reads

"Funny, furious, and quietly devastating. What Gentlemen Do gets at something most people miss about struggling cities--that they come back to life not from top-down policies but from the ground up, from a kid in a used bookstore, a song played in an empty downtown, a philosophy class that won't let you quit. A novel about placemaking that never once uses the word. Against the most depressing backdrop, Todd Babiak has written one of the most hopeful things I've read about our relationship to cities and place in years." --Richard Florida, author of The New Urban Crisis

"Few writers can bring together humour, heart, and hope more thoughtfully and powerfully than Todd Babiak, even in a story set against a very bleak but all too real societal landscape. Brilliantly written, this novel tears you down and then lifts you up. Masterful." --Terry Fallis, two-time winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour

About the Author

TODD BABIAK's most recent novels are The Spirits Up, Monument (originally published as The Empress of Idaho), Son of France, and Come Barbarians, which was a Globe and Mail Book of the Year and a number one bestseller. His earlier work includes The Garneau Block, which was a national bestseller, a longlisted title for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the winner of the City of Edmonton Book Prize; The Book of Stanley; and Toby: A Man, which was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal and won the Alberta Book Award for Best Novel. Todd Babiak is the co-founder of Story Engine and CEO of Brand Gold Coast.