The Yale Club of Los Angeles and Zibby's Bookshop are hosting Yale alum Will Schwalbe ('84) as he celebrates the paperback launch of WE SHOULD NOT BE FRIENDS! Will will be joined in conversation by Rufi Thorpe, author of THE KNOCKOUT QUEEN, and the event will be presented by Yalie Zibby Owens ('98), author of BLANK.
The event will be preceded with the presentation of the Yale Book Award to two high-achieving public high school students in conjunction with the Yale Club of LA and the LA Fulfillment Fund.
About the book:
By the time Will Schwalbe was a junior at college, he had already met everyone he cared to know: the theater people, writers, visual artists and comp lit majors, and various other quirky characters including the handful of students who shared his own major, Latin and Greek. He also knew exactly who he wanted to avoid: the jocks. The jocks wore baseball caps and moved in packs, filling boisterous tables in the dining hall, and on the whole seemed to be another species entirely, one Will might encounter only at his own peril.
All this changed dramatically when Will collided with Chris Maxey, known to just about everyone as Maxey. Maxey was physically imposing, loud, and a star wrestler who was determined to become a Navy SEAL (where he would later serve for six years). Thanks to the strangely liberating circumstances of a little-known secret society at Yale, the two forged a bond that would become a mainstay of each other’s lives as they repeatedly lost and found each other and themselves in the years after graduation.
From New Haven to New York City, from Hong Kong and Panama to a remarkable school on an island in the Bahamas—through marriages and a divorce, triumphs and devastating losses—We Should Not Be Friends tracks an extraordinary friendship over decades of challenge and change. Schwalbe’s marvelous new work is, at its heart, a joyful testament to the miracle of human connection—and how if we can just get past our preconceptions, we may find some of our greatest friends.
About the authors:
WILL SCHWALBE has worked in book publishing (currently as an editor at Macmillan); in digital media; and as a journalist, writing for various publications, including The New York Times and the South China Morning Post. He is the author of Books for Living, The End of Your Life Book Club, and coauthor, with David Shipley, of Send. He lives in New York.
RUFI THORPE received her MFA from the University of Virginia in 2009. She is the author of three novels, The Girls from Corona Del Mar, Dear Fang, With Love, and her most recent, The Knockout Queen, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award. She lives in California with her husband and two sons.
ZIBBY OWENS is the creator and host of the award-winning, daily podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books. Zibby is also the founder and CEO of Zibby Media, dubbed “the Zibby-verse” (L.A. Times). It includes publishing house Zibby Books, online magazine Zibby Mag, Zibby’s Book Club, retreats, classes, and events. She owns Zibby’s Bookshop, an independent bookstore in Santa Monica, CA. A regular contributor to “Good Morning America” and other outlets, she loves recommending books as “NYC’s Most Powerful Book-fluencer” (Vulture). Zibby is the author of Blank, Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature, and children's book Princess Charming, and editor of two anthologies, Moms Don't HaveTime to Have Kids: A Timeless Anthology and Moms Don't Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, Zibby currently lives in New York (with frequent visits to L.A.) with her husband and her four children.
Founded in 1898, the YALE CLUB OF LOS ANGELES is the premier community for Yale students, alumni and faculty in the Los Angeles area. Centered on continuing the collegiate spirit of lifelong learning and fellowship, the club hosts multiple service days, social events, talks, and receptions for accepted and returning students throughout the year.