The Reeds: A Novel

A single summer changes the trajectory of each member of this close-knit family, changing their lives — and the family — forever.

“Sharp, wildly hilarious, touching, and profound … Maybe art can’t be perfect, but Arjun Basu comes as close as it gets.” — Chris Harding, author of Pickard County Atlas

The Reeds are a very loving, slightly dysfunctional family — but a summer of individual changes is about to shake their tight family unit. Bobby, the father, loses his job while his wife Mimi’s lucrative business leaps ahead. Their adopted son, Abbie, leverages his internet stardom into the makings of a career, while their adopted daughter, Dee, discovers who she really is. They’ll have to navigate the shifting landscapes of money and fame in the age of the internet, office politics, gender dynamics, and sexuality in a world that has just seen political upheaval.

Set in Montreal’s west end, The Reeds is an ultimately optimistic story about the middle class, hope and love, and nostalgia, while exploring the dehumanization of work and the power of art against a backdrop of shag carpeting, the relentlessness of change, gentrification, and Japanese fried chicken.

Arjun Basu is the author of the Giller-longlisted Waiting for the Man (ECW Press). He loves bourbon and plays beer league hockey very poorly. A former magazine editor, he owns his own brand and content consultancy and is the host of The Full-Bleed, a podcast about the future of magazines. He lives with his wife in Montreal. Learn more about the author at arjunbasu.com.

ISBN: 9781770417434
Format: Paperback
Pages: 360
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: October 15, 2024

“The Reeds is sharp, wildly hilarious, touching, and profound. I sank into the thick shag of the characters — their isolation and anxieties, their moments that made me wince — and I never wanted to leave. Maybe art can’t be perfect, but Arjun Basu comes as close as it gets.” — Chris Harding Thornton, author of Pickard County Atlas“Such a generous, big-hearted book. ‘The world is a wondrous and just place,’ Basu writes — so rare to read a portrait of a contemporary family that is this grown-up, attentive, and full of love, as if Ted Lasso went back to school for a PhD in American lit.” — Sean Michaels, Giller Prize–winning author of Us Conductors and Do You Remember Being Born?“The Reeds is ambitious, intimate, and wise, a surprisingly beautiful and ultimately optimistic story about deeply flawed, authentic humans. Arjun Basu is one of the very best writers working today.” — Timothy Taylor, author of Stanley Park and The Rise and Fall of Magic Wolf