Advance Praise "Martin's best and biggest book so far, a clever, rigorous, and relentlessly, unfortunately, accurate portrait of how it is to be alive and in your thirties . To Martin's great credit . he manages to avoid the pitfalls of the genre, and instead use the trappings of the story we all know too well to tell us something very specific about a few imaginary people, and something very universal about our own real selves ." --Emily Temple, Lit Hub (Most Anticipated) "This sharp new novel from the cult-favorite author of Early Work is about two "neurotic, ambivalent intellectuals" and their friends: professors, artists, anti-Establishment types with money. As the pandemic bears down, their problems --with addiction, with sex, with relationships--begin to become untenable." -- Emma Alpern, Vulture (Most Anticipated) "Andrew Martin's first novel , Early Work , marked him as a droll chronicler of what it means to be young, frequently lustful, and offhandedly intent on leading a literary life . The sexual entanglements are elaborate and fearlessly described; so too are the perils of substance addiction and depression. The novel zips by.
" --Taylor Antrim, Vogue (Best Books of 2026) "Martin writes about his characters with a mix of affection and bemusement . He has an impressive psychological insight . Crucially, this is also a very funny novel . Wonderfully charming . Another impressive book by one of the country's most talented authors of comic fiction." --Kirkus (Starred Review) "Moving and funny and gorgeously written. For all its aching sadness, Down Time is a thrill to read, the sentences somehow bold and vulnerable all at once. I'll say it: Martin has written The Corrections for his generation.
" --Ed Park, author of Same Bed Different Dreams "Down Time is a beautiful, weird, pervy, funny novel about everything that happens when it feels like nothing is happening. Andrew Martin has managed to capture the simultaneously absurd and moving nature of the present. So many moments made me laugh out loud while also thinking 'my god, this is so sad.' I loved this book !" --Halle Butler, author of Banal Nightmare and The New Me "Andrew Martin is a wildly gifted writer of relationships . He renders the quiet, daily parts of coexistence in a way that feels exciting, uncomfortable, and humane. Down Time is decadent, funny, and vivid about the way a relationship can be a strange shared consciousness." --Raven Leilani, author of Luster "Andrew Martin is a razor-sharp chronicler of the lives, loves, and disappointed longings of a generation hungry for meaning but forced to subsist on a diet of gigs and vibes . With rare skill and a superabundance of insight , he holds a wittier, more incisive mirror up to people like you and me and details the inner facets of their souls--and, most importantly, what happens when what's hidden is revealed to the people they hold close.
" --Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun " Down Time is effortlessly cool, wise, witty, and full of compassion --it should be blasted into space so that extraterrestrials, or our future descendants on Mars, know how privileged-but-adrift millennials lived and felt about being alive. Andrew Martin makes the exhaustion of our utterly fucked moment in history new, like it's something you could sharpen yourself against. This is his best book yet ." --Christine Smallwood, author of The Life of the Mind.