Hot Desk
A Novel
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4.0 • 10 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Younger meets Writers & Lovers in this rollicking, sparkling, and funny novel that spans decades and generations of a family in the publishing industry.
In the post-pandemic publishing industry, two rival editors are forced to share a “hot desk” on different days of the week, much to their chagrin. Having never set eyes on each other, Rebecca Blume and Ben Heath begin leaving passive-aggressive Post-it notes on the pot of their shared cactus. But when revered literary legend Edward David Adams (known as “the Lion”) dies, leaving his estate up for grabs, their banter escalates as both work feverishly to land this career-making opportunity. Their fierce rivalry ultimately forces each to decide how far they’ll go to get ahead, what role they want to play in the Lion’s legacy, and what they mean to each other.
As their battle for the estate gets more heated, Rebecca learns of a connection between her mother, Jane, and the Lion. The story travels back four decades earlier to when Jane arrives in Manhattan and meets Rose, soon her best friend. Jane and Rose are two strong, talented young women trying to make their mark in the publishing world at a time when art, the written word, and creative expression were at their height. But one fateful day during the April blizzard of 1982 will change the course of Jane’s life, and of their friendship, forever...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Dickerman's uneven debut, two editors compete to acquire the posthumous work of a literary legend. Rebecca Blume, 28, has been at Avenue Publishing for five years. After its parent company forces her imprint to move to an open concept layout, she's required to give up her office and share a desk with Ben Heath, an editor from another imprint. When Edward "the Lion" Adams dies without an agent, word spreads quickly about unpublished stories and a possible novel from the "muscular" writer who, in Ben's view, was better than Philip Roth. Ben attempts to leverage his friendship with the Lion's son to land the deal, while Rebecca becomes a contender when she hears from the Lion's widow, Rose, who was once a fellow intern with her mother, Jane, at the Lion's literary magazine in the 1980s. As Ben and Rebecca's battle gives way to a charming romance, revelations come to light about the Lion's troubling behavior when Rose and Jane were interns, threatening his reputation and the viability of his unpublished work. The enemies-to-lovers story line is appealing, as is the office intrigue, but it feels at odds with the heavier material. The result is a dishy but discordant tale of the literary world.
