Essays
The Friend of the Family, coming this January
In spite of Brussels sprouts and the horrific but delicious tragedy of the turkey, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. There’s not all the Christmas bother of buying and wrapping cheap neckties and sachets for loved ones. Thanksgiving is not as scary an experience as July 4th when the risk of setting your pants ablaze again with fireworks is higher than you always realize. Unlike when celebrating Genghis Kahn’s birthday, there are no dangerous contests with broadaxes, halberds, and bludgeons.
Even as a child, I didn’t like birthday parties. I was the youngest of all the cousins in my family, and by my last year in kindergarten, I learned it was better for me to push my own face into the cake before one of them could do it with greater violence. And on Halloween, of course, I was quick to take the candle out of the jack-o’-lantern and stick the pumpkin over my head before one of them thought to do it.
I always dreaded Saint Patrick’s Day until I realized it really wasn’t a law that the youngest cousin had to get into a barrel with a live snake and be rolled around the block to celebrate St. Patrick driving the serpents out of Ireland.
No one but me celebrates my book-publication days as holidays, but that’s all right with me. The Friend of the Family, a novel that is very close to my heart, will be published January 20, 2026. If you want to celebrate with me, you can pre-order it in hardcover, audio, or eBook. I will have a few friends and family in for hors d’oeuvres and cocktails on the day. Even now I can hear their loving exclamations as they are presented with signed gift copies of the novel. “Oh, my God,” they will say, “yet another one,” and “Oh, I always love re-gifting these to those awful people across the street,” and “Keep him occupied while I go buy a cake.”
May your Thanksgiving be free of Brussels sprouts, sauerkraut-and mayonnaise balls, and pickled pigs’ feet either plain or served in cabbage shoes with spaghetti-squash laces.
All best wishes from everyone here in Koontzland.
