Quality Time

A debut love story of 2000s discontent from author and poet Suzannah Showler-for readers of HOW SHOULD A PERSON BE? by Sheila Heti and NORMAL PEOPLE by Sally Rooney.

Ferociously in love from the start, Nico and Lydie spent a first year together so beautiful that they've been recreating it, day by day, ever since. Their anniversaries, sometimes elaborate, sometimes small, have become the couple's entire universe, tethering them to a reality they've built together, collapsing their sense of time.

But the real world is creeping in. As the people around them start to get married, get pregnant, get serious, Lydie wonders what it is they're really doing, and why it leaves her so little time to focus on the art she moved to the city to create. Meanwhile, Nico experiences a divine event that convinces him the anniversaries matter more than ever, and in the city around them, the urban wildlife is rising up on a mission of their own.

A vivid time capsule from an era of Millennial love, recession discontent, and city garbage strike racoons, Quality Time is about that rare, innocent moment when we feel like masters of our own fate, and what happens when the real world starts to press in from the edges.