The Celebrants

Steven Rowley grew up in Portland, Maine, then spent time in Los Angeles pursuing a career as a screenwriter. Frustrated with the process after the turning point of the 2007 writers’ strike, Rowley took a job as a paralegal to write fiction in his spare time. He initially intended to self-publish his first novel, Lily and the Octopus (2016), but it was instead acquired by Simon & Schuster, who paid an uncommonly large advance—nearly $1 million—for a first novel. The plot of Lily and the Octopus involves a man who is unable to cope with his grief at his elderly dachshund’s tumor and imagines it as an octopus instead. It was inspired by Rowley’s grief at the loss of his own dog.

Rowley’s other works are The Editor (2019), in which the writer of an autobiographical novel works with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as her editor; The Guncle (2021), in which a former sitcom star becomes responsible for his niece and nephew after the death of their mother; and The Guncle Abroad (2023), the sequel to the previous work. The Celebrants is distinct from the previous novels due to its ensemble cast with five primary characters. However, it is similar in themes of loss and grief, as well as in comedic