Waiting on a Friend : A Novel

New York City, East Village, 1984. A;young woman with the power to see the ghosts of her friends is haunted by the one who refuses to return--a dazzling, big-hearted debut of friendship and community during a time of devastation and defiance. "A beautiful study of friendship, of how loss unmoors us, and how if we keep turning towards love, anything is possible."--Ann Napolitano, author of Renata is a young dyke-about-town who can see ghosts, something she''s doing more and more of lately as too many of her friends are dying of a new, terrifying disease.;When Renata''s best friend Mark dies of complications from AIDS, Renata is devastated by the loss of the person she loved most in the world. And to her disappointment and increasing despair,;Mark seems unwilling or unable to return for the proper goodbye they both were denied. While Renata waits anxiously for Mark, she must stay vigilant: a mysterious, police-like force has begun ridding their East Village neighborhood of anything abnormal or inexplicable. What first seems like a scam reveals itself to be far more sinister, targeting the soul of Renata''s community. With her band of lovably eccentric pals and lovers, Renata is determined to fight back against the erasure of her friends'' memories and the sanitizing of her beloved New York. But haunting her every step is Mark, the one ghost who stubbornly refuses to reappear. Both heartbreaking and healing, tragic and triumphant,