Bobby Finger is a journalist, podcaster, and pop culture critic, best known as the co-creator and host of the Who? Weekly podcast focused on B-list celebrities. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and other publications. The Old Place (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) is his debut novel. For the first time in nearly four decades, Mary Alice Roth is not getting ready for the first day of school at Billington High. She just retired but she’s already bored. At least there’s Ellie, who stops by each morning for coffee. Having her back in her life is the one thing soothing the sting of no longer having anywhere to go when she wakes up. They’ve been a pair since Ellie moved in next door, when both were single mothers – Mary Alice widowed, Ellie divorced – with sons the same age. And they were forever linked when they lost the boys, one right after the other. It took years to rebuild their friendship, but then Mary Alice’s sister arrives with a staggering piece of news that threatens her relationship with Ellie, questions the fabric of Billington, and might force the unflappable Mary Alice to change after all.