“The Wilderness ”Celebrates Adult Friendships and Chosen Family — See the Cover! (Exclusive)

Friendship, womanhood, Blackness and aging gracefully collide in a new novel from Angela Flournoy.

The Wilderness follows five Black women as they grow from young adulthood to midlife, framing the passing of time not as something to run from but to be embraced. Told over the course of about two decades, Flournoy's novel captures the essence of the "dizzying and sometimes precarious" period of life that insists upon true, close friendships.

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The book follows five friends — Desiree, Danielle, January, Monique and Nakia — at the start of some major moments, including careers, marriages, big-city lives and motherhood, all in the midst of political, economic, environmental and overall American turmoil.

"Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness, that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood — overwhelming, mysterious and full of freedom and consequences — swoops in and stays," a synopsis reads.

The Wilderness, the second novel for Flournoy after National Book Award finalist The Turner House, will come out from Mariner Books this fall.

“I wrote The Wilderness because I had not read a book that looked at how deep friendships become essential to navigating the period of life between your 20s and your 40s — the decades when we truly come into adulthood," Flournoy tells PEOPLE.

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"I’m most excited for readers to have an opportunity to consider the importance of these sorts of friendships, how we maintain and lose and return to chosen family over the years," the author continues. "I’m also excited for them to think about how technology and current political life has impacted the way that we connect with the people we love the most."

PEOPLE can also exclusively reveal the book's cover, created by pioneering visual artist Mickalene Thomas. She's a champion of Black womanhood, Flournoy says, and forges an artistic path all her own — which is evident in the cover art.

"The artwork is stylish, sexy, layered and inviting," Flournoy says, of the book's cover. "I couldn’t have dreamed up a better match for the story I’ve written."

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Months ahead of its release date, The Wilderness is already receiving high praise as a complex yet tender story.

"The Wilderness arrives like a miracle. Here is the novel I'm always waiting for, one which captures and explains and deepens the world around me. These women, these friends — in their grief and loss, their dedication and their communion — are so achingly real it's hard to let them go," wrote Justin Torres, author of National Book Award winner Blackouts. "A book of ideas, gorgeously written with clear-sighted vision by one of the wisest, most talented authors working today. Angela Flournoy’s The Wilderness is a book to get lost in."

The Wilderness comes out Sept. 16, 2025 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

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