Congratulations, the Best Is Over!

March 1, 2023

Thomas follows up his best-selling, multi-best-booked, Lambda finalist Here for It with more acidulously funny essays on identity and the struggle for a meaningful life. Readers join him for 15 original essays featuring surprising trips to Urgent Care and his 20th-high school reunion and puzzle with him over a backyard invasion by gay frogs. Prepub Alert.

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Starred review from May 1, 2023
In this hilariously candid memoir-in-essays, bestseller Thomas (Here for It) offers a glimpse at his experiences returning to his hometown of Baltimore from Philadelphia after decades away. The conversational pieces cover a wide range of subjects, including his marriage to a minister (whose job search landed the couple back in Maryland), his infatuation with Oprah’s Favorite Things, his attempts to build himself a Nancy Meyers kitchen, and his experience attending his 20th high school reunion only to discover the name tag he (a Black man) was assigned displayed the photo of a “white guy with blond hair.” The mood isn’t all light, however: Thomas opens up about his father-in-law’s death and his own bouts with depression (“It’s really more of an ongoing partnership than a struggle”), and he punctuates the proceedings with regular soul-searching, repeating the question “Who am I now?” as he revisits key locations from his past. The unfailingly entertaining essays burst with personality and amount to a full-fleshed portrait of all the beauty and difficulty of coming home again. This tender memoir captivates. Agent: Anna Spoul-Latimer, Neon Literary.

Starred review from June 1, 2023
The bestselling author of Here for It pens another hilarious and thoughtful essay collection. In 2017, after 12 years away, writer and comedian Thomas returned to his hometown of Baltimore with his husband, David, a Presbyterian minister. The author clearly has a rocky relationship with the city, but he navigates it with characteristic humor and warmth. As he told his therapist soon after making the move, "Nothing is wrong, but I can't really get started here, and I feel like I've lost the bead on my life. Also, I'm in a toxic relationship with the city of Baltimore, and so I guess I'm seeking couples counseling." In these amusing and often wise essays, Thomas ranges widely, discussing celebrity eyebrows, mental health crises at the mall, and the terror of moving to the suburbs--especially challenging when faced with "dozens of loud-ass homosexual frogs"--all while reestablishing his relationship with Baltimore. The author wrestles with the challenges of returning home in the phase of life that is "between the best days of life and the worst days of life, between what you thought your life would be and what it is"--a phase he simply calls "the middle." Throughout, Thomas displays his talent for self-deprecating humor, but he doesn't shy away from heavier topics. He writes candidly about the experience of being Black in America, his battle with depression, and the loss of his father-in-law. Thomas is skilled at demonstrating that humor and gravitas can go hand in hand, penning many essays that include multiple aspects of both--e.g., an account of a depression-driven visit to his grandparents' graves that resulted in the discovery of bright balloons bearing the unexpected message, "You Rock," tied to the headstones with party ribbons: "Here, in the all-encompassing quietude of the cemetery: an exclamation point. The shock of life." Readers who enjoyed his previous book will love this one. A funny, poignant, astute collection.

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September 8, 2023
Following his first essay collection (Here for It, 2020) and his YA fiction debut (Kings of B'more, 2022), Thomas is back with another book of hilarious and insightful nonfiction pieces, this time around focusing on the return to his native Baltimore for his husband's job as a pastor. Thomas has a complicated relationship with his hometown and has to find new angles of understanding and empathy for the people and problems around him. In these hilarious pieces, Thomas shares how it feels to be settling in the suburbs after years surrounded by city noise. Readers will relate to the big questions about career and purpose that Thomas faced throughout the pandemic. Stories about gardening, neighbors, marriage, and friendship all orbit the book's central notion that readers should not spend their lives chasing an intangible future. Highlighting the power of reinvention at any age, Thomas' writing encourages all to enjoy the chaos and the magic of the present.

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