Natalie Adler: Remember Your Love for the Project
In this interview, author Natalie Adler discusses honoring and remembering queer history in her debut novel, Waiting on a Friend.
Natalie Adler has an MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Brown University. She was a Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow at the Center for Fiction. She is an editor at Lux magazine and an instructor at Sackett Street Writers. She is from New Jersey and lives in New York City.
In this interview, Natalie discusses honoring and remembering queer history in her debut novel, Waiting on a Friend, her familial connection that helped bring a main character to life, and more.
Name: Natalie Adler
Literary agent: Julie Barer, The Book Group
Book title: Waiting on a Friend
Publisher: Hogarth
Release date: May 26, 2026
Genre/category: Literary fiction
Elevator pitch: New York City, East Village, 1984. A young woman with the power to see the ghosts of her friends is haunted by the one who refuses to return—a dazzling, big-hearted debut of friendship and community during a time of devastation and defiance.
What prompted you to write this book?
I have always been fascinated by the layers of history in New York City, the feeling that the living and the dead share the same space generation after generation. I’m interested in what remains (or maybe what resists) and what changes, and what forces shape these changes. The worst years of the AIDS crisis in New York map onto mortal changes for downtown life.
It felt natural to me to approach the AIDS epidemic as a ghost story because ghosts show up when an injustice has been buried. There is also a queer resonance to the ghost because in their obscurity, they demand to be seen.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
About seven years: two years of kicking around an idea and five years of writing. I had something in mind about the AIDS crisis, ghosts, and gentrification, and eventually I figured out the conflict would be both internal (a woman who can see ghosts waits for the ghost of her recently deceased best friend to appear) and external (a shadowy business accelerates gentrification by promising newbies to the neighborhood to cleanse their homes of supernatural residue). And I had a vision of the novel ending at the Village Halloween Parade, which I wanted to feel like a release. Getting there was the work of years.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
This is my first novel, so it’s been one long learning moment. At some point I realized that everyone in publishing is making educated and experienced guesses about what readers want, but some people have very good taste, and it’s best to trust those people.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I had my aunt in mind as I was writing this novel because she was a hospice nurse during the AIDS crisis. I knew my aunt well, but I didn’t know her stories from that time period—she didn’t like to talk about it. She died suddenly in 2022, before I got to show her my work. One of my main characters is a nurse treating people with AIDS, and the more firsthand accounts I read from people who had done AIDS care work, the more I saw that I had anticipated what my aunt had been through emotionally. Knowing her character made it possible to imagine the stories she never told me. So, that was the surprise: I had her stories in me all along.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope that those who lived through this time period will feel that my book honored their feelings, struggles, and losses. I want them to know that their loved ones are remembered and that our memory of the AIDS crisis will not be erased. And I hope that younger people—or anyone, really—who don’t know about the AIDS crisis will learn that in the face of certain death and social revilement, there were people who took care of one another, who refused to abandon one another, and who refused to be victimized. I’ve taken heart from their lessons and I hope readers will, too.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
If you’re writing something historical, read everything you can. Read about the economic policy, read about the music scene. Nose around the archives. Find old magazines and know what conversations were happening.
No matter what you’re writing, remember your love for the project, and that even on the toughest writing days, it is a pleasure to spend time with your imaginary friends.
