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Published Jul 2022
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Zanne Klein never planned to be a personal assistant to Hollywood royalty Ted and Holly Stabler. But a decade in at thirty-eight, that's exactly how she spends her days, earning six figures to make sure the movie mogul and his family have everything they could ever dream of and more.
However, today is no ordinary day at the Stabler estate. Tonight, everyone who's anyone will be there for the Hollywood event of the season, and if the party's a success, that chief of staff job Zanne's been chasing may soon be hers. Which means she can buy a house, give her girlfriend the life she deserves, pay off her student loans.
Nothing's going to get in Zanne's way—not disgruntled staff, not a nosy reporter, not even a runaway hostess. But when Ted's former business partner, Phoebe Lee, unexpectedly shows up right before go time, Zanne suddenly has a catastrophe unfolding before her—one with explosive consequences. As the truth comes out and Zanne realizes how deeply entangled she's become in the Stablers' world, she must decide if the sacrifices she's made for the job are worth the moral price she has to pay.
Told over the course of a single day and from three fierce perspectives, The Work Wife is a richly observed novel about female ambition, complicity, privilege and what happens when the brightest of stars aren't allowed to shine.
"This book flies on a magic carpet of seamless, intricate detail, much of it from work experience the author acknowledges in an afterword...there's never a moment's slip in authenticity or momentum. Riveting details of a fascinating hidden world support a ruthless takedown of misogyny and entitlement. One hell of a debut." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Hart debuts with an intriguing kaleidoscopic look at a Hollywood scandal...[her] incisive examination of sexual abuse in the entertainment industry resonates deeply." - Publishers Weekly
"Hart has created an engrossing, piercing look at the compromises and choices women make to succeed and thrive." - Booklist
"Written with great verve and flair, The Work Wife is a fascinating look at the sacrifices, challenges, and choices of three complicated women intertwined with a Hollywood mogul. A rewarding read, deeply satisfying from start to finish, this is truly one heck of a debut from Alison B. Hart." - Jami Attenberg, New York Times bestselling author of All This Could Be Yours
"Alison B. Hart has created a beautifully written, feminist page-turner. Filled with biting commentary and insights into #metoo reckoning and the invisibility of behind-the-scenes 'women's work,' The Work Wife is a dazzling debut. I couldn't put it down." - Angie Kim, bestselling author of Miracle Creek
"This timely, wry debut about female Hollywood creatives who are fed up with their delegation to the dark side of Tinseltown tackles major subjects—ambition, sisterhood, misogyny—with intimacy and heart. Witty, clever, and propulsively plotted—I dare you to put The Work Wife down." - Courtney Maum, author of Touch and Costalegre
This information about The Work Wife 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.
Alison B. Hart's writing has appeared in Joyland Magazine, Literary Hub, the Missouri Review, and the Millions, among others. She co-founded the long-running reading series at Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn and received her MFA from The New School. She grew up in Los Angeles and now lives in North Carolina.
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