"Overstuffed with bittersweet beauty." -- Los Angeles Times "A bittersweet love letter to 1990s New York.what's best about Kois' work here is.his eye for detail and penchant for humorously trenchant descriptions.This keenly observed.atmospheric first novel is an ode to friendship, creativity, and an era now gone." -- Kirkus Reviews "A novel that is both an argument about art and a compelling example of it." -- New York Times Book Review "Kois skewers the myth of the "one right path" through life, while gently acknowledging our continued belief in it.
A coming-of-age story built on unlikely friendships, Vintage Contemporaries is a novel of contradictions; it's all there in the name." -- Elle "It is joyful and comforting to read a novel with loving, complicated characters who aren't defeated by life--despite many reasons they could be." -- Washington Post "Lovers of used paperbacks and 1990s nostalgia will find a lot to like about this wholesome debut novel." -- Associated Press "Exceptionally warm-hearted . mounts a convincing case for such uncool causes as good taste over fashionable taste, editing as creative craft work, and smart novels where everything matters only as much as it ever matters in life." -- Vox "Charming." -- Publishers Weekly "Kois delivers a bravura first novel . Kois' delectably smart, witty, caring, and radiating read channels an amusing and admirable woman's evolving perspective and experiences.
" -- Donna Seaman, Booklist "Smart, sharp and with a twist of inside publishing, this novel is a gem." -- Zibby Owens, Good Morning America "Vintage Contemporaries is about being young and becoming less young, exploring friendship (sometimes magical, sometimes messy), parenthood (ditto), and how to reconcile youthful ambition and ideals with real life. It's a warm and big-hearted coming of age story that made me wistful for my own twenties, set in a vividly rendered and long-vanished New York City." -- Rumaan Alam, bestselling author of Leave the World Behind "Vintage Contemporaries is about many things--art, friendship, youth, desire, a very particular slice of New York City--but what makes this masterful debut sing is Dan Kois's dazzling excavation of the human heart and all its contradictions, mystery, and beauty. Smart, laugh-out-loud funny and consistently surprising, this novel is a gem." -- Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of The Nest and Good Company "Vintage Contemporaries is an elegant and tender exploration of friendship, the passage of time, and what we lose and gain in the process of becoming ourselves. Part elegiac, part mindful of what nostalgia can obscure about the past, Dan Kois's novel provides precise insight into the defining moments of youth and adulthood, and finds grace and abundant possibility in both." -- Danielle Evans, author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self and The Office of Historical Corrections "A delightful, funny novel that asks the question, Is writing about happiness an important thing to do?--while doing exactly that, so beautifully and convincingly that it's like a magic trick.
" -- Maile Meloy, author of Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It and Do Not Become Alarmed "What a warm and delightful novel about friendship, responsibility, ambition, and legacy. Poignant without being treacly, Vintage Contemporaries is a time capsule of the recent past, and a wry and tender work of art." -- Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State.