Review_FICTIONReview_FICTION
38 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ MARCH 9, 2020
Byron Lane’s delightful roman à clef, A Star Is
Bored, draws on his experience working for
the actor Carrie Fisher (reviewed on this page).A Star Is Bored
Byron Lane. Flatiron, $26.99 (352p) ISBN 978-
1-250-26649-1
Lane debuts with a fizzy roman à clef
about a celebrity assistant, playfully
alluding to his experience working for the
actor Carrie Fisher. Lane begins with
Charlie Besson’s job interview, “panicked
and parked outside the estate of Hollywood
royalty.” The job is an assistant to Kathi
Kannon, famous for playing the beloved
Priestess Talara in the science fiction epic
Nova Quest (a thinly veiled Star Wars).
Charlie, who left behind a dull career as a
local TV news writer to work for Kathi,
narrates his process of learning the ropes of
being an assistant, while attempting to
heal from a pattern of self-destructive
drinking and unprotected sex. Charlie
travels with Kathi, helps her cope with
addiction, and develops a bond with his
boss, earning endearing nicknames like
Cockring and Stepson. Lane brings wit and
tenderness to Kathi’s mostly acerbic per-
sonality, and her attachment to Charlie is
potent and palpable. As Charlie grapples
with finding his passion and place in the
world, Kathi tells him, “I’m giving you the
best shit to write about... this will all be
funny one day,” and he latches on to Kathi
as his “superpower,” to the frustration and
bemusement of the men he dates. If any of
this were true (a note from Lane’s attorney
says otherwise), Lane’s affecting tale would
show how the real Charlie found his own
superpower—as a novelist. (July)Friends and Strangers
J. Courtney Sullivan. Knopf, $26.95 (416p)
ISBN 978-0-525-52059-7
Sullivan’s intimate, incisive latest (after
Saints for all Occasions) explores the evolving
friendship between a new mother and her
babysitter. After journalist Elisabeth
Ronson moves with her husband, Andrew,
and infant son, Gil, from Brooklyn to
Upstate New York, Elisabeth struggles
with the demands of motherhood and
faces loneliness and disconnection. Thenshe hires Sam O’Connell, an art student at
the nearby women’s college, to babysit.
Elisabeth likes the upbeat Sam, though she
has misgivings about Sam’s 30-something
boyfriend, Clive, who proves to be
untrustworthy. Elisabeth and Sam corre-
spond over Christmas break while Sam
visits Clive in London and Elisabeth spends
the holiday entertaining her parents and
in-laws at home. Elisabeth and Sam argue
about Clive, and Elisabeth’s father-in-law,
George, provides another source of tension:
Elisabeth finds his leftist rants tiresome,
while Sam, via email, takes encouragement
from George to campaign for improved
working conditions on her campus. She also
struggles to understand if Elisabeth sees
her as a friend or employee. Observations
on domestic and social interactions add
weight to Sullivan’s inquiry into Elisabeth
and Sam’s interior lives, showing where the
cracks seep into their friendship. Readers
will be captivated by Sullivan’s authentic
portrait of modern motherhood. (June)Parakeet
Marie-Helene Bertino. Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, $26 (240p) ISBN 978-0-374-22945-0
Bertino (2 A.M. at the Cat’s Pajamas)
impresses with this dreamlike, sardonic
novel about a woman questioning her
impending marriage while processing the
trauma of a terrorist attack. Holed up in a
Long Island inn during the week leading
up to her wedding, a 36-year-old woman,
known only as the bride, is visited by her
dead grandmother, a first-generation
American, in the form of a parakeet. Thebird commands her to find her estranged
sibling, Tom, a successful and reclusive
playwright. The bride attends Tom’s
play, titled Parakeet, which depicts a fic-
tionalized version of an anti-immigrant
attack on a coffee shop she worked in when
she was 18 (the bride describes herself as
appearing “ethnically ambiguous”; she is
of Basque and Romany descent). Later,
the bride is startled to see her mother in
the mirror, and continues to be unsettled
by her pending transition into the role of
“wife” (“I get the sense that the number of
people who are married is not equal to the
number of people that give the institution
much thought”). These thoughts lead to an
affecting description of the bride’s memory
of being wounded in the coffee shop ram-
page. The bride’s conflicted emotions come
to a head as the novel builds to a satisfying
end. Fans of Rivka Galchen will delight in
Bertino’s subtly fantastical tale. (June)★ Sleepovers
Ashleigh Bryant Phillips. Hub City, $16.95
trade paper (204p) ISBN 978-1-938235-66-5
In Phillips’s blunt, life-affirming debut
collection, characters in rural, hardscrabble
North Carolina grapple for hope while
being sustained by a soundtrack of Today’s
Country Hits on FM radio and a diet of Duck
Thru hot dogs. In “Shania,” the unnamed
seven-year-old protagonist is awed by her
friend, named after the country music star,
and the girls are united in their desire to
become blood sisters. Their friendship is
cut short after domestic violence erupts in
Shania’s decrepit house. “The Locket” is
about the unlikely bond between Shirley, a
60-year-old pool custodian with a simple
mind who often relfects on her painful
childhood, and Krystal, a teenage baby-
sitter with an impressive dive. Before
meeting Krystal, Shirley’s sole companion
is the spirit of her long-dead horse, Norma.
After Krystal coaxes Shirley into lending
her a prized locket, the consequences are
devastating. The title story shifts between
describing fourth-grade Nicki and her
friends’ sleepovers and the tribulations of
Nicki’s father. After he loses his leg in an
accident, the community raises money for
an artificial leg, but it doesn’t quite fit.
Phillips demonstrates an impressive ease
at depicting transition, trauma, and loss,
brilliantly evoking a close-knit world held
together by the strength of friendship. ThisFiction
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