Anyone's Ghost

“This new novel is a real heart-squeezer. Beautiful, one of a kind and perfectly titled.” —Matt Berninger, The National

“A beautiful exploration of the all-encompassing nature of friendship, specifically male friendship, and the devastating speed at which grief can derail your life. Thompson paints a nuanced and understanding portrait of love and bisexuality while underlining how everything from the people you know to the music you listen to as a teenager can brand themselves indelibly on your sense of self.” —Service95

“Brilliant . . . A coming-of-age story of first love, discovery, and grief.” —American Songwriter

“The unattainable boy will always be out there, but a genuinely powerful debut that succeeds solely on its merits instead of hype is a lot harder to find. Anyone’s Ghost, however, is one.” —The Irish Times

“[An] electric debut novel . . . With shades of André Aciman and Donna Tartt, the book fascinates from its first sentence . . . Thompson’s hypnotic prose and addictive plot moves and exhilarates in equal measure.” —Vogue

“Thompson’s touching, unforgettable story follows the two across the years as their relationship changes, but their shared history continues to hold them together.” —Town and Country (best books of summer 2024)

“A dazing portrait of anxious boyhood, and of equally uncertain sexual awakening . . . Thompson writes with finesse about the flood of emotion behind friends Theron and Jake . . . a gutting experience, but one with precious insight.” —Elle

“A novel that shares its name with a song by The National will always stir my interest. Thompson’s debut, which has received glowing praise from literary heavyweights Jonathan Safran Foer and Junot Diaz, tracks the blurred-lines intimacy of two boys who meet as teenagers and dart in and out of one another’s lives.” —Electric Literature

“Thompson’s honesty about the slithery nature of forbidden love and its consequences outshines the protestations and prevarications of the two men whose lives have tumbled together, innocently enough but destined for tragedy . . . The single most remarkable aspect of this compulsively readable novel is Thompson’s willingness to delve into both physical and emotional details that a lesser writer would dodge.” —Bay Area Reporter

“Anyone’s Ghost thrums with tenderness and tension . . . The writer’s debut novel interrogates grief and masculinity through a gut-wrenching tale of an all-consuming love . . . the writing is both an ode to a love that was not diminished by time—and also an elegy. Thompson proves that this kind of unrelenting nostalgia can be dynamic and even startlingly sensual . . . This oscillation between the beauty and isolation of masculinity is what makes this narrative so compelling . . . Thompson is not afraid of that emotional intensity—rather, he revels in its tension… Anyone’s Ghost establishes Thompson as a master of writing toward persistent nostalgia.” —Document Journal

“It’s bursting with youthful drama complete with car crashes and confused sexuality and friendship and masculinity and rock and roll and all of it bundled up in a roiling mess of emotions and unspoken desire. With Junot Díaz and Darin Straus and Jonathan Safran Foer, it’s one of the debuts of the year.” —Parade

“Thompson captures the raw intensity of their connection with poetic precision. Anyone’s Ghost is an addictive novel about desire, masculinity, and the lasting mark of our first loves.” —Hobart Pulp

“An expansive coming-of-age novel where Thompson isn’t afraid to lean into heartbreaking moments. It’ll make you cry but it’s so much more than that. Thompson finds the funny, the horny, and the uncomfortable in growing up and finding yourself when everything around you just doesn’t seem right.” —Debutiful (most anticipated debuts of 2024)

“From the very first sentence, this dazzling debut demands to be listened to . . . This coming-of-age saga digs up vulnerable parts of every character, brushes off the dirt, and reflects their desires into perfect prisms of light . . . Thompson is an exciting new voice in queer literary fiction, and this is an essential novel.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“With beautifully crafted prose and lived-in dialogue, Thompson’s debut novel captures the joy and agony of first love alongside the struggle to understand and become oneself.” —Booklist

“[A] dirtbag Call Me by Your Name . . . Revealing the power of the first flush of romantic and erotic connection . . . A brash and well-turned coming-of-age tale.” —Kirkus

“Moving and darkly funny, Anyone’s Ghost is a nuanced bisexual romance that focuses on the muck of falling in love as much as its joys.” —Our Culture

“The moody and moving chronicle of a complicated friendship between two young men . . . [Anyone’s Ghost] marks Thompson as a writer to watch.” —Publishers Weekly

“One of the best first novels I’ve come across in years.” —Bret Easton Ellis, The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast

“You know those books that you take with you everywhere? That you won’t stop talking about to your friends? That bring it all back? That change you? Anyone’s Ghost is that book. Thompson has fired a literary flare into the black night of the universe and the illumination is spectacular.” —Junot Díaz

“Anyone’s Ghost is about so very many things: the pains of growing up, friendship and pining, drugs, sex, the frustrations of masculinity, and the thrill of testing death itself. But more than any of that, it is an overwhelmingly beautiful love story. This book will make you cry.” —Jonathan Safran Foer

“In Anyone’s Ghost, August Thompson has given us a devastating, heart-cracking, richly imagined love story for the ages. I read hungrily, relishing Thompson’s poetic eye and deep respect for the complexities of life, loss, sexuality, and love.” —Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different

“This book is a monster: the magnificent writing, the gallery of characters, the fascinating glimpse into the ‘right now’ make it stand about twenty feet tall among new books I’ve read.” —Darin Strauss, National Book Critics Circle Award winner, author of The Queen of Tuesday

“Anyone’s Ghost is a ferocious novel of erotic friendship, uncategorizable love, and vexed masculinity, voiced by a narrator as winning and large-hearted as any character I’ve recently met. With its psychedelic prose and fierce moral intelligence, this is one of those books that makes you want to keep living. To read it is to fall more deeply in love with the world.” —Maggie Millner, author of Couplets: A Love Story