“A tender-hearted novel and a dream to read. I loved this book.” -- Matt Haig #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library
“so so so so good…[Speech Team] is a MUST…It has all the feels and brilliant writing to boot.” -- Elin Hilderband (on Instagram) #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Five Star Weekend
A funny, gossipy and ultimately poignant novel about four Gen X teen friends turned 21st-century adults who awkwardly come back together to confront an influential teacher whose brutal remarks have haunted them all for years.
In his early forties, nonprofit writer Tip Murray is just getting past the wreckage of his youth and settling into semi-humdrum married New England domesticity. Things take an unusual turn when he receives shocking news from his high school best friend, hippie farmer Natalie, that one of their former teammates from speech team, Pete, has committed suicide. Surprisingly mentioned in Pete’s final Facebook post? A devastating comment made to him by their speech team coach, Gary Gold.
Feeling nostalgic for their 80s adolescence, Tip and Nat decide to reconnect with two long lost friends from the team, haughty menswear designer Anthony and tightly wound college professor Jennifer. The reunited quartet quickly discover an unsettling thread: all were quietly wounded by Mr. Gold’s deeply cutting remarks. The silver lining? Gold is still alive, and a quick Google search shows that he has retired to Florida. There’s only one thing left to do: fly down to a posh resort to confront him. What happens next is far from what any of them could have imagined.
Fueled by cringe-y confrontations and 80s nostalgia, a literary mashup of
The Breakfast Club and
The Big Chill,
Speech Team explores what it means to take account of the pain that can suffuse a life and what it means, years on, to move forward.
"Tim Murphy is a genius at sweeping, character-driven stories that suck you in until the very last page, and Speech Team is no exception." —Andy Cohen
"A lively and warmhearted novel starring four precocious Gen X teens-turned-twenty-first-century middle-agers who are seeking . . . well, if not exactly justice from a long-ago hurtful teacher, then at least some kind of long-desired reckoning and closure Late one morning, parked in a desk chair at his humdrum job, Tip Murray finds himself reading the suicide note of his long-lost high school friend Pete Stroman. Mentioned in the note as a root cause of Pete's despair? A disparaging comment made to him about his developmental disability by none other than their high school speech team coach, Gary Gold. As more thorny memories surface from their eighties adolescence, Tip and his best friend, fellow speech team alum Nat Farb-Miola, decide to reconnect with their other teammates, and they discover an unsettling thread: all were quietly wounded by Mr. Gold's offhandedly insensitive remarks. The silver lining? Gary Gold is still alive, and a quick Google search tells the quartet that he has retired to Florida. There's only one thing left to do: confront him. By turns incisive and sweet, alive with the sting of wounds past and the hopeful possibility of the present, Speech Team explores what it means to take account of the pain that can suffuse a life and what it means, years on, to move forward"--
