Stay Up with Hugo Best
A Novel
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2.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
**One of Vogue’s Best Books of the Year ** “Incisive, funny, and tinged with melancholy, the timely novel follows two lost but clever souls desperate for connection.” —Entertainment Weekly
June Bloom is twenty-nine, broke, and an aspiring comedy writer. Hugo Best is a beloved late-night TV icon and notorious womanizer who invites her to his mansion for Memorial Day weekend. This is the story of their four days together, a “zippy…magnificent…devilishly fun ride” (Vogue).
When June Bloom, an assistant on the late-night comedy show, Stay Up with Hugo Best, runs into Hugo himself at an open mic following his unexpected retirement, she finds herself fielding a surprising invitation: Hugo asks June to come to his mansion in Greenwich for the long Memorial Day weekend. “No funny business,” he insists. “Incisive, funny, and tinged with melancholy, this timely novel follows two lost but clever souls desperate for connection” (Entertainment Weekly).
June, in need of a job and money, but harboring the remains of a childhood crush on the charming older comedian and former role model, is confident she can handle herself. She accepts. As the weekend unfolds and the enigmatic Hugo gradually reveals appealingly vulnerable facets to his personality, their dynamic proves to be much more complicated and less predictable than June imagined.
“A witty and subtle commentary on sex, power, and social politics” (Refinery 29) and “an outstanding comedic debut” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Stay Up with Hugo Best announces a gloriously irreverent, bold, and winning new voice in fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Somers's witty, melancholy debut takes place entirely over a long Memorial Day weekend. June Bloom, 29 and vaguely dissatisfied with her life, has been working as a writers' assistant for a late-night talk show called Stay Up with Hugo Best. After being on-air for decades, the show has recently ceased production. Following a party for those involved with the show, 65-year-old host Hugo invites June to his estate in Connecticut for the weekend. Hesitant but intrigued, and against the advice of her best friend Audrey, June drifts along with the comic she has idolized for years. While bracing herself for Hugo to make a move, she finds herself queasily attracted to his teenage son, Spencer, home from prep school for the weekend. She eats pizza with Hugo and drives around with him in one of his collection of cars, looks on from the sidelines as he squabbles with his manager, and watches him prepare for an unsuccessful pool party. Somers sidesteps the predictable path the reader might expect this weekend to take, instead meandering into subtle, surprising territory. Within the strict temporal boundaries she has set herself, Somers depicts two equally lost souls unable to connect on a deep level. This is a winning debut.
