A lost young man’s well-intentioned—sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking—attempt at navigating adulthood, online culture, and friendship in this coming-of-age story for our times.

Waylon Gans did not mean to start a riot on the university campus. He was only there because he wanted to be in the audience while one of his heroes, Josh Modley, recorded a live podcast. In fact, that night on campus, twenty-year-old Waylon felt hopeless about his prospects and he just wanted to be surrounded by guys who felt the same.

The problem, as Waylon sees it, is that he is trash; he lives in Walleye, a town everyone wants to leave; his parents are losing their home due to a bad cryptocurrency investment; his job at the used book store is a dead-end; Derby, the love of his life, cannot even look at him; his social standing is just as low as the Chmielewski brothers, who sit at home playing Fortnite; and he’s worried he’s falling back under podcaster Josh Modley’s influence and the comfort of blaming everything on the “feminists, globalists, and communists.” Half-heartedly pursuing an associate degree, Waylon is enrolled in Philosophy 118: Introduction to Stoicism. As Waylon soon learns, Marcus Aurelius said to change course or accept correction leaves you just as free as you were. Waylon becomes entranced by these teachings. 

In a voice that is by turns comic and unusually wise, What Gentlemen Do is an unvarnished look at a young man wrestling with the consequences of his actions, the shakiness of his beliefs, and jeopardizing many important relationships. Waylon’s forced to dismantle his own perception of truth and hopefully gain something meaningful in the process.