"In Tongues" by Thomas Grattan 

A breakup with his boyfriend sends narrator Gordon and his few belongings to the bus station, where he purchases a one-way ticket from Minneapolis to the first place he thinks of, New York City. After a desultory spell living above a garage and working at the grocery across the street, Gordon meets tough, tattooed bartender Janice, a soulmate friend who soon becomes his roommate and chosen family. Janice's girlfriend hooks Gordon up with a dog-walking job, which introduces him to Philip and his partner, Nicola, gallery owners of unfathomable wealth and good taste. Outwardly, Gordon lives like a man with no past or future, but readers learn all the ways that isn't true: the troubled love among his small, split-up family; the precise foreignness of his new surroundings from his beyond-modest upbringing; the agony he feels at knowing what to say or do in most situations. Grattan (The Recent East, 2021) shrewdly lets readers grow with Gordon. He unselfconsciously obsesses over the signs of Philip's 70 years, but more slowly realizes his obsession with his own youth, with being seen and seeing himself. In this fine, affecting novel, Grattan's subtle, true portrayals and sharp dialogue make a highly enjoyable read even more so.-- Booklist Online, May 2024, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.