To write a novel that both expands generations and centers on one person is always a hard thing to do. To do it so successfully with your debut novel is another thing altogether. The Slip (Simon & Schuster 2025) by Lucas Schaefer is a huge novel, not so much physically as mentally. You start the novel expecting a simple mystery—an interesting one, to be sure, but little more—and are instead given an epic.
The novel won the Kirkus Prize, and was named one of The New York Times Book Review‘s 100 Notable Books of 2025 and one of the Washington Post’s Ten Best Books of 2025.
The Slip begins with Terry Tucker’s Boxing Gym in Austin, Texas. This gym serves as the home base for a multitude of characters, as well as a central setting that the narrative revolves around. Ten years ago from the start of this book, long-time regular Bob Alexander’s nephew went missing while he was visiting Bob over the summer. Nathaniel Rothstein arrived a surly, insecure teenager, sent away to meditate on his actions while volunteering at Shoal Creek Rehabilitation Center for elderly people. Under the guidance of David Dalice—a Haitian immigrant and another regular at the Boxing Gym—Nathaniel undergoes a transformation that everyone begins to notice, before leaving, seemingly randomly and without trace.
At the same time, we follow another teenager in Austin, one going simply by X, as he grapples and untangles his gender and sexuality in an unforgiving society. Through a chance connection a meeting is struck, with expectations to be met on both sides as they each go through both physical and mental transformations. The Slip follows Bob Alexander and other modern members of the gym several years after the disappearance of Nathaniel, spliced with the past narratives of both Nathaniel and X, as well as almost everyone that could possibly be related to them—a six degrees of separation situation that covers generations.
Schaefer manages this huge cast with grace, going back and forth in a way that feels natural and not overwhelming. He truly shines with his characters. Each member of this ensemble is fully fleshed out, given entire chapters dedicated to their backstories that are somehow seamless in the narrative arc. This can only be credited to Schaefer’s pen. He has a wit and relatability that is utterly engaging. Schaefer gets you hooked on a character in anticipation, drags you along the ride of the main narrative before releasing you into essentially a biography of that character, then picks up exactly where he left off. It’s done tactfully, not repetitively. You connect with each character introduced; you laugh with (and at) them, and you empathize with their feelings of anger, loneliness, and uncertainty.
He does this more successfully with some characters than others, but his best examples work so well that it is very easy to forgive the slightly less well-integrated backstories. The Slip sometimes picks up characters to drop them almost immediately after they have served their purpose. Other times, it mentions characters in one setting, making them just recognizable to spot in another time and place altogether despite their insignificance. This, while perhaps irritating to some readers, makes The Slip feel alive and cohesive. It covers such a large amount of time, with so many characters, that it is easy to forget that this takes place in mostly one city. Schaefer takes you briefly to New York, to Atlanta, even Kenya, to tell the stories of these characters, but always brings you back and grounds you to Austin.
Schaefer takes a lot on in this book, tackling themes of racism, sexism, homophobia, and almost everything in between, creating a book full of life with all of its implausibilities. He takes great care to point out how easily Nathaniel’s disappearance (or the events leading up to it) might not have happened, and explains with great prose how it did. It reminds you of all that led to the possibility of your existence and how intertwined all of our lives are. This is all condensed into a spectacular experience of 484 pages. The Slip is truly an adventure through the growing pains of adolescence and adulthood; of what could have been and what is.
Lucas Schaefer
Lucas Schaefer’s work has appeared in One Story, The Baffler, Slate and other publications. He holds an MFA from the New Writers Project at UT-Austin. He lives with his family in Austin.
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