A Wry Ode to Female Friendship
Emily Nemens told People Magazine that she set out to write an “ode to friendship” in her sophomore novel, Clutch. Mission accomplished. Without an ounce of sentimentality, Nemens explores the friendships among five women formed at an elite East Coast college. Think A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara or, more recently, Lily King’s Heart the Lover and even Maya Arad’s Happy New Years. Why does such a rich vein of college-friend lit exist? Perhaps because the relationships formed during the last stop on the adolescence train are so foundational to who we become as adults.
Most of the novel takes place while the friends stare down their 40th birthdays, another one of life’s defining moments. The tentpolesthat hold up the plot of Clutch are three highly-charged gatherings that occur during the “most consequential” quarter of their lives: a girls’ trip to Palm Springs, a funeral and shiva for one of the husbands, and a Texas-sized birthday blowout. Nemens stamps the narrative timeline with text messages from the quintet’s group texts, perhaps a nod to Mary McCarthy’s The Group. And like The Group, this book, set in 2023, is both a novel of our time and ageless portrayal of the delicacy and strength of any friend group.
The group chat drives this tale, each individual revealing her roles within her family, friend, and larger social ecosystems. Carson, a writer, wants to publish her sophomore novel about her estranged father’s incarceration; sheaffords her rent by sharing a Brooklyn group house with young hipsters. Bella, a mother of two, dines regularly at Tavern on the Green and wants to make partner in her white- shoe law firm so badly that she sacrifices her mental health and her family as she preps for a soul-sucking case. Gregg, a mother of two, actress turned Texas politician, and wife of an Elon Musk-type gazillionaire, wants a congressional seat and must make a wrenching decision to get it. Hillary, an ENT doctor and mother of a little boy routinely exiled from the playground, is in the throes of divorcing her drug-addicted husband and simply wants peace. Reba, a wealthy former management consultant who micromanages the group during their girls’ weekend, is desperately trying to get pregnant while she makes excruciating decisions regarding her aging parents’ care.
The group’s lives and dynamics are narrated by a sassy, smart Jane Austen- esque voice who offers sharp social commentary on Texas abortion legislation, billionaires traveling to space, beverage companies infusing heart-stopping quantities of caffeine into drinks, and the quirks of modern parenting. This guide can see into all characters’ hearts and minds and troubled family histories: violent fathers, mothers who slung barbs, and parents who never showed up at all.
Without this omniscient voice, it might be difficult to keep track of the large cast of characters each of whom “… had relationships with the others—the women by twos and threes at a time, the all-but-one text chains.”
Which friend do you call when hospitalized in a psych ward? When contemplating ending a pregnancy or a marriage, or negotiating the challenges of an interfaith family? And even if you pick the right friend forthe situation, willshe be available at that moment given her own stresses?
Competition, jealousy and pettiness are rooted in their economic disparity, unique vulnerabilities or their pace in reaching adult milestones like childbearing. “It wasn’t an outright race, but there was a special feeling about being the first of their friends to fill in the blank.”
By the blowout birthday party at the end, only some friends have achieved their desires. Friendships, even of the college variety, can implode during times of disappointment or victory. These friendships, however, will survive, because “They would get through everything in one solid piece or shattered to smithereens but with enough glue and fortitude to reassemble the shards.”
Michelle Brafman’s novel, “Draw Near to Me,” a companion to Swimming with Ghosts, will be published in July of 2026 (Turner Publishing).
