A story about aging that refuses to grow old

For all the comedy—and there is plenty—The 30-A Justice League is ultimately about the fragile, furious, beautiful business of aging:

• How friendships deepen when the world thins out.

• How love becomes simpler and harder at once.

• How grief shapes people long after the funeral.

• How hope must sometimes be hunted down like stolen property.

The novel reaches for something rare in contemporary fiction: meaning without melodrama. It is life-affirming precisely because it acknowledges how messy, absurd, and uncooperative life can be.