The New York Times - Parul Sehgal
In Temporary, a brisk, wildly imaginative first novel…you can hear an old note, a note I've missed in American fiction, and am surprised to have noticed myself missing—for so long it seemed dominant to the point of imperishability. The violent, surreal, often cartoonish scenarios delivered deadpan that draw attention to the freakishness of ordinary life—from writers like Donald Barthelme, Gordon Lish, Ben Marcus…This novel could have easily sagged into dogma, but Leichter keeps the narrative crisp, swift and sardonic. Temporary reads like a comic and mournful Alice in Wonderland set in the gig economy, an eerily precise portrait of ourselves in a cracked mirror.
Publishers Weekly
★ 11/18/2019
Leichter’s funny, absurdist debut cleverly explores a capitalist society taken to a dreamlike extreme. The narrator is a temporary—an employee of the world, whose temp agency can place people in different jobs, from the banal (basic office work) to the incredibly unlikely (subbing in for a barnacle by clinging to a rock). She has 18 unnamed boyfriends, who bond in her apartment while she is gone. Her boss, a woman named Farren, places the lead on a pirate ship, where she is asked to kill a hostage. She rebels, only to end up working as an assistant to an assassin. Though the jobs are temporary, the narrator accumulates objects—such as stolen boots, and a necklace containing the ashes of the Chairman of the Board, whose ghost is a supporting character. A particularly strong section comes in the middle of the book, when the narrator remembers her first assignment: her mother leaves her to wander through an empty house and close its doors over and over again. Though consistently zany, there are moments of profundity: always coming back to her many boyfriends and the desire to realize “the steadiness” (a tongue-in-cheek aspiration to find a fulfilling, lifelong career), the heroine finally finds peace through her conversations with the Chairman. Leichter’s cutting, hilarious critique of the American dream will appeal to fans of Italo Calvino. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
Leichter’s funny, absurdist debut cleverly explores a capitalist society taken to a dreamlike extreme…. Her cutting, hilarious critique of the American dream will appeal to fans of Italo Calvino.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A young temp searches for permanence in Leichter’s whimsically surreal fable of late-stage capitalism…. Clever and strange and, in the end, unexpectedly hopeful, less a biting gig-economy satire than a wistful 21st-century myth. A dreamy meditation on how we construct who we are.”
—Kirkus
“Temporary is a demented, de-tuned love song for the working life. Hilary Leichter possesses the brute force of language and imagination to create ultra-vivid worlds, suffused with an eerie weirdo beauty. It is Leichter’s brilliance that these invented worlds reflect so directly, blindingly, on the secret, mythical workings of our own.”
—Ben Marcus
“Temporary took me by storm. Each short chapter is a wallop of topsy-turvy wisdom and humor, and together they build a strange and sparkling universe. The novel is about work and identity and the masks we wear, but it’s also about our weird little human hearts and what they can bear. I am a Hilary Leichter superfan.”
—Ramona Ausubel
“In Temporary, the quest for gainful employment is epic; operatic; deliciously, sunnily, terrifyingly entertaining. Hilary Leichter is a conjurer of rare talent.”
—Kelly Link
“This clever book! I don’t know how Hilary Leichter worked this bit of sly magic, but she waved a wand and created the perfect parable for our perilous gig economy. This hilarious, sad book about work and worth is what everyone needs to read right now.”
—Amber Sparks
“A profound, devastating, and unforgettable book of wonders. Devour Temporary in one sitting so you can join the feverish club of people who love this book!”
—Xuan Juliana Wang
“A narrative so deliciously allusive and disarmingly literal that this reader kept thinking maximum glee had been attained, only for the glee to somehow grow even more maximal just a few sentences later.”
—Helen Oyeyemi
“A weird, punny, hysterical, hard and soft-hitting collection of laughs, tears, and thought-provoking entertainment. Temporary will be one of the best books you read next year.”
—Paperback Paris
"[Carly] Robins's inflections evoke the perky perfection of a woman who is making incredible connections between the nature of work and life, all amid the story's magical realism. Robins's narration makes this audiobook a delightful experience worthy of multiple listens."
—AudioFile Magazine
Library Journal
03/01/2020
DEBUT Leichter's debut introduces readers to an unnamed temporary worker who lives in a bizarre world in which it's possible to fill in for the chair of a board of directors, assist an assassin, step in as a mother to a lost child, and work as a pirate deckhand on a ship with a human resources department. Anything can be a temp role in the world of the protagonist, who additionally has 18 boyfriends to fit every possible mood, season, height requirement, and occasion. She takes on ever stranger jobs, all with gusto and all to find something to call her own: a permanent place in a world that has made temporary positions out of every facet of life. VERDICT At once hilarious, surreal, and serious, Leichter's first novel reveals truths about capitalist society while exploring the meaning of doing one's work well, despite how ridiculous or temporary it might be. This will be enjoyed by fans of Jen George and Helen Ellis.—Mara Shatat, Ursuline Coll. Lib., Pepper Pike, OH
MARCH 2020 - AudioFile
Carly Robins narrates the journey of a temporary professional, called the Temp, and her encounters with strange and irreverent assignments. Whether she’s filling in for a member of a pirate crew, opening doors to a haunted house, or acting as a temporary barnacle, the Temp’s most important job is doing whatever assignment she has been given well. Her dream is to find “the Steadiness,” or the seemingly indescribable feeling of a full-time position. Robins’s inflections evoke the perky perfection of a woman who is making incredible connections between the nature of work and life, all amid the story’s magical realism. Robins’s narration makes this audiobook a delightful experience worthy of multiple listens. V.B. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2019-12-09
A young temp searches for permanence in Leichter's whimsically surreal fable of late-stage capitalism.
The nameless protagonist of Leichter's debut leads a temporary existence. "The calls come on Mondays and Fridays, flanking each week with ephemeral placements," she explains. It's her job to fill in for others, and she takes it seriously; after all, as she read once on a granola bar wrapper, "there is nothing more personal than doing your job." All people are replaceable, but the jobs must continue. Filling in for the chairman of the board at Major Corp ("the very, very major corporation"), it is her job to sign documents and stamp dates and run meetings and wear fashionable scarves. "Everyone has a parcel of work they don't want to do themselves, and what can I say? I'm a purveyor of finished parcels," she says simply. Soon, she leaves the city and her cadre of casual boyfriends—her culinary boyfriend and her tallest boyfriend and her earnest boyfriend, a designated boyfriend for each possible purpose—for a series of increasingly absurd assignments. On a pirate ship, she fills in for someone named Darla, swabbing the decks and cleaning the company buckets, adjusting her temperament to best channel real Darla. But then Darla returns—she was only visiting her grandparents in Florida—and our unnamed protagonist is on to her next transient post, filling in at a small murder business, with logistics. She comes from a long line of temporaries, but still, she hopes it is temporary, being a temporary. The lucky temps ascend to a state of permanence—"the steadiness," they call it. "My dream job," she tells her earnest boyfriend, "is a job that stays." The novel, playful bordering on twee, is not especially subtle in its commentary—a cohesive identity? in this economy?—but it's clever and strange and, in the end, unexpectedly hopeful, less a biting gig-economy satire than a wistful 21st-century myth.
A dreamy meditation on how we construct who we are.
