WHEN WE GROW UP

Angelica Baker is the author of the novels Our Little Racket and When We Grow Up. Her essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Literary Hub. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, with her husband and two sons.

“Sharply observed, sardonic, engaging, intimate, and evocative, When We Grow Up delves into the ways we try and fail to form and foster friendships, both before and after we know how to love well or thoughtfully. It confronts the damage that we cause, the violences we miss, as we bumble through discovering who we are. An exploration of how impossible it can feel, in the face of a world that seems so often invested in our imminent destruction, to want and know how to be good.” —Lynn Steger Strong, author of Flight

“When We Grow Up is novel as anthropological investigation, a study of the class of people for whom adulthood begins at thirty. I laughed, I winced, and I saw much I recognized in Baker’s exploration of how the self is forged not only by the circumstances of our birth and family and education but by our peers and friends.” —Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Entitlement and Leave the World Behind

1. What do you make of the novel’s title, When We Grow Up? What does “grown up” mean to you, and do you think any of the characters are? If not, when might they be?

2. In the first chapter, the characters face the threat of an incoming missile. How does that collective experience set the tone for their vacation? How does it reverberate throughout the novel? Near the end, Renzo reflects: “None of us wanted to die here together, right? We all felt burdened by each other’s very presence. We would have rather just been alone.” Do you agree with his interpretation? How do you think you would have reacted to the threat?

3. Jamie somewhat jokingly refers to Clare as “the poor one” in her friend group, and she and Jamie definitely have a different relationship to money than the other main characters. How does privilege shape the way the friends relate to one another, not just in terms of wealth, but class, race, and sexuality, too?

4. Why do you think Jessie and Clare have such a complicated relationship? How are they similar and different, particularly in how they relate to their male friends, their mothers, and their bodies? Why do you think Clare ultimately tells Jessie about her miscarriage, even before telling Jamie?

5. Interspersed with the front story in Hawai’i are scenes from the past. Did those backstory sections shift your understanding of the characters in the front story? If so, how? Was there a flashback that felt particularly meaningful or revelatory to you?

6. Clare spends much of the week missing Jamie, even as she is cheating on him with Liam. She reflects: “Her friends are exhausting, the memories they keep poking one another to unearth, the endless recitations of the same stories and the way they all perform them for one another. Whatever her complaints about Jamie, whatever her fears about how boring they’ve become, she knows this much: they don’t perform for one another.” How do you understand her marriage? Why do you think she cheats? Do you feel sympathy for her decision? How does Liam experience their affair?

7. At the club, Clare overhears two of the employees discussing her and her friends. One of them says: “Everybody acts like they come to Hawai’i to feel different, to focus on Hawai’i… But they just act like it’s boss level of the video game, they only want admin access if no one else has it. Nobody comes here for Hawai’i.” How do you interpret his words? What does the friends’ relationship to Hawai’i look like? How does it compare to, for instance, Olive’s or Ryden’s?

8. Clare is preoccupied with the idea of becoming a “better person,” especially since the election. What do you think that means to her, and what has she done to change her life (or not)?

9. While her friends still live in Los Angeles, Clare moved to Boston years before. How has that geographic distance affected her friendships? Do you think they would feel closer emotionally if they were also closer physically, or would the same drifting apart have happened regardless?

10. Mac tells Clare: “‘Remember when’ is kind of all we have… And I don’t think any of you really ever think about, like, if I really want to remember. Like, I love you guys, and it’s fun to tell the stories, right? We knew each other when we were such babies. But like, sorry, my adult friendships are… different.” What do you think he means? How are his friendships with Clare and the others both meaningful and harmful?

11. Renzo describes their friendship to Clare: “We act like a long history is the same thing as enjoying one another’s company, as feeling good when we’re together… We’re so obsessed with elevating something that was, let’s face it, perfectly mundane. It wasn’t this halcyon era. It was just being young.” Do you agree that their friendship is mostly built on shared history and memories, or is there more to it than that?

12. When Geoff arrives, Clare describes him as “add[ing] himself to the group like an unnecessary and ill-placed table leg: wherever they press down, the surface refuses to steady.” How does he change the group dynamic? Do you think they still would have had their explosive fight without him? Why or why not?

13. Although Clare blows up at Geoff and Jessie over their defense of their Republican friend, she admits, in reference to her friendship with Kyle: “She wants the people she loves to be somehow exempt from the series of judgments these past few years have undeniably, however they try to deny it, pushed them all to make about themselves. She is, in the end, doing just what Geoff and Jessie were doing at dinner.” Do you agree that it’s the same kind of situation? How do the characters reconcile their desire to be better, more ethical people with the hypocrisies of their own lives?

14. Clare tells Renzo: “You’re the reason, Ren. That we’ve all stayed in touch. You’re the central, like, centrifugal force. You’re the connector. You always were.” Do you agree? What particular role does he play in the friend group? In their final fight, do you think he has irreconcilably changed their dynamic? Why or why not?

15. Near the end of the novel, Clare observes that “they will be leaving this island with only whatever wisdom they had when they got here.” Do you agree? If not, how have the characters changed over the course of the novel? What do you think the future holds for them?