Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2020
208 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
In Temporary, a young woman's workplace is the size of the world. She fills increasingly bizarre placements in search of steadiness, connection, and something, at last, to call her own.
Whether it's shining an endless closet of shoes, swabbing the deck of a pirate ship, assisting an assassin, or filling in for the Chairman of the Board, for the mythical Temporary, "there is nothing more personal than doing your job."
This riveting quest, at once hilarious and profound, will resonate with anyone who has ever done their best at work, even when the work is only temporary.
"Though consistently zany, there are moments of profundity...Leichter's cutting, hilarious critique of the American dream will appeal to fans of Italo Calvino." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The novel, playful bordering on twee, is not especially subtle in its commentary...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." - Kirkus Reviews
"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
"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
This information about Temporary was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Hilary Leichter's writing has appeared in n+1, the New Yorker, the Cut, the Southern Review, and elsewhere. She has taught fiction at Columbia University and has been awarded fellowships from the Folger Shakespeare Library and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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