From the best-selling author of The End of Your Life Book Club comes a warm, funny, irresistible book that follows an improbable and life-changing friendship over the course of forty years.

‘Moving. Salted with intelligence and empathy’ New York Times Book Review
‘A page-turner’ New Yorker
‘Really shines’ San Francisco Chronicle
‘Gorgeous’ Sebastian Junger

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Imagine a secret society which pairs you with your polar opposite.
You meet regularly.
What would you talk about?
Could you become friends?

Will is bookish, quiet, gay, manning AIDS helplines.
Maxey is loud, a wrestler, a Jock, intent on a military life.
But paired together – over dinner, beers, pool games – they forge an extraordinary and resilient bond.

We Should Not Be Friends is an account of their odd-couple relationship, its ups and downs, twists and turns, the misunderstandings and the trust built over forty turbulent years.

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‘A rare view of male friendship . . . succeeds because Maxey comes across as a great character, a warm and devoted friend’ NPR

‘Schwalbe has an uncanny ability to use his personal experience as a springboard for universal truths’ Los Angeles Times

‘A charming read with plenty of surprises. Celebrates not only an unlikely friendship, but the strange turns a life can take’ Wall Street Journal

‘Schwalbe’s memoir shines. Written like a true friend’ Daily Mail