Waiting on a Friend

By Natalie Adler
* Publication Date 26 May 2026**
​4 stars


The late 70s / early 80s were an interesting time to be a young adult. I was a teenager at the time, but I still remember a lot of the pop culture that is contained in this novel. I also remember the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.


Renata is a 29 year old lesbian living with her gay best friend in an apartment in the East Village, New York City. Renata grew up in this part of town, moving all around it with her mother, Ruthie, who was a junkie. Renata is lucky to have a close circle of friends. These friends are who hold Renata close when necessary and pick her up when she falls. 


Mark has AIDS. It’s still not really called that, but young men, and now women are dropping like flies from it. Renata knows far too many of them. And Renata still sees many of them around the neighborhood, because Renata has the gift of being able to see the departed, or what we would call ghosts. So when Mark passes and he never comes back to see Renata, she is grieving not only his loss and friendship, but also his ghost. Renata can’t move on. Can’t let Mark go. It’s slowly eating her up inside.


Meanwhile their old neighbor François has decided to visit regularly. François also died from AIDS-related complications. Now he visits Renata and wails endlessly. When Renata thinks she can’t take it anymore, a flier appears under her door offering to rid the space of negative energy. Only once Renata has rid the space of François, she finds herself feeling guilty. So it becomes her mission to free the energy of the deceased, along with her wacky group of friends.


There is so much about this novel to love. The passionate friendships that Renata is so lucky to have. The times before which were still a tad loose from the 1970s and hadn’t yet become the buttoned-up 1980s. The Rolling Stones were in their prime. The East Village hadn’t quite become gentrified yet. There is also a lot of sadness in this novel. The wards filled with dying young men. The fears of being near anyone with AIDS because no one was quite sure how communicable the virus was.


Yet, it is a good novel. A good way to look back at that time and realize how far we’ve come, and how far we actually have to go. It’s a lesson in love no matter what. A lesson in grief and how avoiding it doesn’t really let it go away.