★ 04/04/2022
Crosley (The Clasp) offers a witty and fantastical story of dating and experimental psychology in New York City. After Lola, 37, bumps into two exes in two days, she suspects it’s more than coincidence. Then her friend Vadis, with whom she used to work at a prestigious psychology journal, drags her to a meeting held by a secretive startup named Golconda run by their charming former boss, Clive Glenn. Clive is putting an obscure theory to the test involving meditation and technological manipulation, in which participants can lure people from their past for a final interaction and closure. Lola balks at the cultlike reverence the others show for Clive, as well as their New Agey vibe, but also hopes to clarify whether she really wants to marry her glassmaker fiancé, Boots. With Boots away for two weeks in San Francisco, she signs up and spends every evening having brief interactions with exes, then returning to Golconda for debriefing. When a stressed-out Clive says they only have funding for one final encounter, Lola discovers something unsettling about the experiment. The accounts of Lola’s reckoning with her romantic history are thoroughly hilarious (describing the rush of boyfriends past, she narrates, “I experienced these men as no one is supposed to experience them, as if being propelled from a T-shirt gun”), and the details of online dating, which made her “the victim of a metric ton of rejection,” are also sharply perceptive, rooting this very much in the real world. Crosley has found the perfect fictional subject for her gimlet eye. Agent: Jay Mandel, WME. (June)
01/01/2022
International award winner Cercas expands to literary suspense inEven the Darkest Night, featuring a young ex-con who read Les Misérables in jail and after the murder of his sex-worker mother joins the Barcelona police and is sent to investigate a particularly brutal double murder outside the city. In another genre blender, the New York Times best-selling Crosley purveys humor, psychological twistiness, and strong writing to create what could be a Cult Classic featuring a woman who leaves a work dinner to buy cigarettes and encounters a string of ghostly ex-boyfriends (100,000-copy first printing). From Dermansky (e.g., the multi-best-booked The Red Car), Hurricane Girl sends 32-year-old Allison Brody from the West Coast to the East Coast, where she buys a small house on the beach and is promptly hit by a Category 3 hurricane that leaves her with a bleeding head and some very confused thoughts. Following Delicious Foods, which boast PEN/Faulkner and Hurston/Wright Legacy honors, Hannaham's Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta features a woman who transitioned in prison and is finally released after more than two decades, returning apprehensively to a New York she barely knows and a family that doesn't understand her (40,000-copy first printing). Winner of the Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, Holleran returns after 13 years with The Kingdom of Sand, whose nameless narrator has survived the death of friends from AIDS and his parents from old age and tragedy and is surviving his own end time by enjoying classic films and near-anonymous sexual encounters (50,000-copy first printing). In Laskey's So Happy for You, following Center for Fiction First Novel finalist Under the Rainbow, Robin and Ellie have always been best friends, but queer academic Robin has her doubts about being maid of honor in Ellie's forthcoming wedding. In the medieval-set Lapnova, from ever-edgy, New York Times best-selling Moshfegh, hapless shepherd's son Marek—close only to a midwife feared for her ungodly way with nature—is caught up in the violence surrounding a cruel and corrupt lord. In this follow-up to Newman's multi-starred The Heavens, all The Men in the world mysteriously vanish at once, leaving women both to grieve and to rebuild. Prix Marguerite Yourcenar winner Nganang follows up hisLJ best-booked When the Plums Are Ripe with A Trail of Crab Tracks, whose protagonist slowly reveals his story—and the story of Cameroon's independence—on a prolonged stay with his son in the United States. The dedicated assistant principal at a New Jersey public high school thinks she has a lock on the principal's job when the current principal retires, but alas for the durable protagonist of Perrotta's Election, Tracy Flick [still] Can't Win (300,000-copy first printing). In Thrust, a motherless child from the late 21st century learns that she can connect with people over the last two centuries, from a French sculptor to a dictator's daughter; from Yuknavitch, a Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize finalist.
★ 2022-03-16
An author best known for her essay collections—Look Alive Out There (2018) and I Was Told There’d Be Cake (2008)—explores the inner workings of modern love in her second novel.
Lola’s whole life revolves around the magazine where she has worked for years. Her co-worker Vadis has become her best friend simply by being someone she sees every day and the person who knows more about her than anyone else. Lola’s identified each and every shortcoming in their boss, Clive—she describes him as a man “animated by logic and brown liquor”—but she’s still just a little bit in thrall to him. Even after Modern Psychology folds, she meets up with Clive and Vadis and another colleague for the occasional dinner. They’re finishing a meal in Chinatown when she steps out for a cigarette and runs into her ex, a writer named Amos. They have a charged conversation, one that makes Lola ask herself uncomfortable questions about her engagement to an artist she calls Boots. The next night, after an old acquaintance drags her to the same Chinese restaurant, Lola encounters Willis, an Olympic athlete and another former lover....She soon learns that these encounters are not coincidences and there are more such encounters to follow. Crosley is nothing if not ambitious here, interrogating contemporary wellness culture and the very nature of love as Lola confronts a gauntlet of ghosts from her romantic past and questions her desire for a future with Boots. Clive, who parlayed his role as editor of Modern Psychology into a brief career as a talk show host, emerges as a self-styled guru using the free labor of his unquestioning acolytes to create a product that gives clients perfect emotional closure. Crosley has created the ideal protagonist/narrator for navigating this low-key–SF but very real world. Lola is skeptical and prickly while also being vulnerable—a wiseass with a heart. The story is plenty engaging, but it’s Crosley’s analytical acumen and gift for the striking metaphor that really gives the book life.
Thoughtfully and humanely acerbic.
Crosley turns her satirical eye toward love in a time of searchable options, of data trails, of Instagram-enforced remembering, of an always-present past…The cultlike quality of companies offering camaraderie in lieu of livable wages is an ideal subject for Crosley, who skewers the setup but regards those who fall for it warmly.”
—Maddie Crum, The Washington Post
“[A] sidesplitting novel that serves both as a critique of surveillance capitalism and a redemptive (yet grounded) love story.”
—Emma Levy, The Seattle Times
“A new Sloane Crosley is always a good opportunity to plant yourself on the nearest upholstered object with a book and not get up for several hours. Cult Classic is the second novel from the celebrated humorist, whose essay collections are required reading for smart people who also identify as fun.”
—Jenny Singer, Glamour
"I was hooked from the first chapter. Cult Classic is easily the funniest fiction I’ve read this year. Crosley brings the same offbeat humor she utilized to acclaim in her nonfiction to this novel that defies easy categorization. Riotously funny, suspenseful, weird, and insightful, it’s a unicorn of a book that’s a perfect summer read if you’re looking for something that’ll make you laugh while keeping you on your toes."
—David Vogel, Buzzfeed News
“Cult Classic is an inventive, fantastical comic novel with decidedly modern preoccupations, among them wellness, social media and hipster-cool… As ever, Crosley is reliably funny as well as winningly piquant with her characters' observations.”
—Shelf Awareness
"[Cult Classic] combines Sloane Crosley’s signature humor with a provocative core, and a surprising mashup of genre elements . . . Deliciously satisfying.”
—Jordan Snowden, Apartment Therapy
“Cult Classic is a spirited, sometimes delightfully mean-spirited, occasionally weird trip through urban life and love in the 21st century."
—Carolyn Kellogg, The Boston Globe
"Like your favorite rom-com meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . . . Crosley casts a spell with lightning wit, devilish dialogue, and walloping truths about how little reason there is to anything resembling love."
—Booklist
"Crosley is nothing if not ambitious here, interrogating contemporary wellness culture and the very nature of love as [her narrator] confronts a gauntlet of ghosts from her romantic past . . . It’s Crosley’s analytical acumen and gift for the striking metaphor that really gives the book life. Thoughtfully and humanely acerbic."
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Did the comic romantic thriller exist before Sloane Crosley, or has she invented it? Either way, Cult Classic is a classic. Funny, suspenseful, unputdownable, here is one of America’s wittiest writers at her best. A pleasure on every page.”
—Andrew Sean Greer, author of Less
“The witty, improbably propulsive rom-com you didn't know you were waiting for - and just the sparkling, slightly sinister love letter to New York City that New York City deserves. An effervescent delight.”
—Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or
"Cult Classic makes an uproarious time of romantic carnage. Crosley captures the brutal mirror of past love, the slow creep of ambivalence into dread, and the sense that a detour can easily become a life."
—Raven Leilani, author of Luster
“Cult Classic is aimed with deadly accuracy at those unfortunate enough to have dated only during the twenty-first century. It’s witty—of course, because Sloane Crosley wrote it—and razor sharp, and very clever, ditto, but it’s more romantic and redemptive than one had any right to expect. It also contains one-liners destined to appear on T-shirts and coffee mugs. It’s so good. I couldn’t stop reading it.”
—Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity
"I love a secret society, and I love a wry narrator alive to the mysteries and absurdities of the world. Cult Classic has both, taking us on a journey that, even as it unspools into comic mayhem, only becomes more real. Here is a book that is unbelievably smart on modern love and startup mystics alike, and a Manhattan that feels accurate down to the molecule. Sloane Crosley can do it all."
—Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough
09/01/2022
Crosley (The Clasp; I Was Told There'd Be Cake) narrates her page-turning novel about a skeptically engaged woman in her late 30s. Lola falls down the rabbit hole of past boyfriends after bumping into an ex outside a restaurant in Chinatown—but there's a lot more to it than that. This is also a novel about the budding cult of New Age influencers, algorithms, and how we make decisions about what we want. As she investigates her reluctance to fully commit, Lola does a postmortem on relationships that didn't work out. It's a delight to listen to Crosley read her work, transporting listeners to the dating scene in New York and expertly delivering moments of wry humor and witty banter. Lola's inner meditations on love, relationships, and gender dynamics are propelled by an exciting and mysterious subplot. VERDICT While the final events of the book are slightly less satisfying, the outcome doesn't affect one's overall enjoyment. At the heart of the story is Crosley's talent for unpacking the paradoxes of love, commitment, and societal convention with humor and sensitivity.—Halie Theoharides
Sloane Crosley narrates her audiobook, a satisfying mix of romance, thriller, mystery, and fantasy. Lola is happily engaged to Boots, but her evenings are unexpectedly teeming with exes. Both her best friend, Vadis, and her former boss, Clive, seem to have formed an interest in her romantic life. While the novel’s language is rich, the characters' voices are often indistinguishable. Still, listeners will hear their tones and inflections as Crosley intends. Brimming with her familiar New York City humor, Crosley delivers sarcasm with flawless comic timing and provides a perfect performance as Lola. The story itself is sandwiched precariously between the real and the surreal. If listeners can suspend disbelief momentarily, the quirky plot and surprise ending will keep them on their toes. E.P. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Sloane Crosley narrates her audiobook, a satisfying mix of romance, thriller, mystery, and fantasy. Lola is happily engaged to Boots, but her evenings are unexpectedly teeming with exes. Both her best friend, Vadis, and her former boss, Clive, seem to have formed an interest in her romantic life. While the novel’s language is rich, the characters' voices are often indistinguishable. Still, listeners will hear their tones and inflections as Crosley intends. Brimming with her familiar New York City humor, Crosley delivers sarcasm with flawless comic timing and provides a perfect performance as Lola. The story itself is sandwiched precariously between the real and the surreal. If listeners can suspend disbelief momentarily, the quirky plot and surprise ending will keep them on their toes. E.P. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
