The Others Gold
Lainey, Margaret, Alice, and Ji Sun arrive at a small liberal arts college in upstate New York and end up sharing a high-ceilinged suite in an old dormitory called the Penthouse. Across four years they become inseparable, the kind of friends who seem to other students like a single luminous unit, and across the four years that follow they remain so, even as careers and city apartments and adult problems start pulling at the seams. Each of the novel's four sections is told from the perspective of one of the women and centers on a single irrevocable transgression, an act each woman commits or carries that the others must decide how to forgive. Elizabeth Ames's debut, published in 2020, is a quietly observant novel about female friendship, privilege, and the way the secrets we keep for one another shape the shape of our lives.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about The Others Gold
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
At a small Massachusetts liberal arts college, four young women meet as freshman roommates: Lainey, Ji Sun, Alice, and Margaret. Across four parts of the book, each woman commits one transgression that the others have to figure out how to live with into their thirties.
The Others Gold was written by Elizabeth Ames and published in 2019. It was Ames's debut novel, structured as four sections each focused on one of four college roommates.
Yes. The Others Gold (2019) is Elizabeth Ames's debut novel. It was named one of the most anticipated novels of the year by Vogue and other major publications.
The Others Gold is 241 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Others Gold takes most readers 4 to 5 hours to finish.
The Others Gold is a standalone novel by Elizabeth Ames, not part of a series.
The Others Gold is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.