Four Squares

Finger’s affectionate and evocative sophomore novel (after The Old Place) alternates between two distinct periods in a writer’s life. In 1992, 30-year-old Artie Anderson meets a married man named Abe at Julius’, the Greenwich Village gay bar, and feels a mix of friction and attraction (“He may be a little prickly, but he makes me confident”) that turns out to be a harbinger for their fraught sexual relationship. Thirty years later, in 2022, Abe has been dead for 18 years, and his widow and pregnant daughter—whom Artie has kept in touch with—are moving to Seattle. Feeling adrift, Artie volunteers at GALS, a gay and lesbian senior center. After he has an accident and breaks his foot, he returns to GALS as a member and befriends the folks he was helping. He gets particularly chummy with Carson, a new member who offers the promise of romance and inspires Artie to write a sequel to Four Squares, the book he published about his friends when he was 30. Though the wistful digressions into Artie’s past tend to lose momentum, he makes for an endearing protagonist, one who is deeply shaped by his evolving feelings for others in his life. Admirers of Finger’s first book will love this. Agent: Kate McKean, Morhaim Literary. (June)