All Friends Are Necessary: A Conversation at the Library with Author Tomas Moniz

Come to the Downtown Library to meet local author Tomas Moniz and hear about his beautiful novel, All Friends Are Necessary! 

Moniz’s impressive debut, Big Familia, put him on the literary map when it became a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and a Lambda Literary Award. Now All Friends Are Necessary delivers a commanding new story about the power of community and the families we create for ourselves. Set in the East Bay and San Francisco, it’s a tale of love with a hyperlocal feel that centers friendship over romance and joy over trauma.

Efren “Chino” Flores, a bisexual Latinx man, has just moved back to the Bay Area from Seattle, jumping from sublet to sublet. In Washington, he was a beloved middle school biology teacher with a loving wife and a child on the way until a devastating loss dramatically changed his life. The only thing keeping him above water is a coterie of new and old friends and lovers who form a protective web around him. Closest to him are Metal Matt, a red-haired metalhead with a soft spot for Courtney Love and a rangy dog named Sabbath, and Mike and Kay, a couple whose literary edge is matched only by the success of their secret OnlyFans account.

As Chino begins to date more men and women—and to open himself up again to love—his bonds with other people grow both rich and profound. Like a fern blooming in the wake of a forest fire, new life comes after even the most devastating upheaval.

Tomas Moniz will read from his new novel and talk about that and about his creative process, and there will be time for questions at the end. And Hayward's own Renee Rettig of Books on B will be on hand, selling copies of All Friends Are Necessary that you can buy if you'd like the author to sign one for you.