One of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of the Summer
A Best Book of the Year in
Vogue
,
Vulture
Elle
, and
Economist
A
New York Times Book Review
Editors' Choice
“Poignant, funny, stealthily ambitious.” —Michelle Goldberg,
New York Times
From the best-selling author of
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.
comes a funny, eye-opening tale of work in contemporary America.
Every day at 3:55 a.m., members of Team Movement clock in for their shift at big-box store Town Square in a small upstate New York town. Under the eyes of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before the store opens and customers arrive. Their lives follow a familiar if grueling routine, but their real problem is that Town Square doesn’t schedule them for enough hours—most of them are barely getting by, even while working second or third jobs. When store manager Big Will announces he is leaving, the members of Movement spot an opportunity. If they play their cards right, one of them just might land a management job, with all the stability and possibility for advancement that that implies. The members of Team Movement—including a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging on to her “cool kid” status from high school, and a college football hopeful trying to find a new path—band together to set a just-so-crazy-it-might-work plot in motion.
Adelle Waldman’s debut novel was a breakout sensation, lauded by the
Los Angeles Times
as an “exacting character study” with “excellent and witty prose” and described as “incisive and very funny” by the
and “brilliant” by both NPR’s
Fresh Air
and the
Washington Post
. In her long-awaited follow-up, Waldman brings her unparalleled wit and astute social observation to the world of modern, low-wage work. A humane and darkly comic workplace caper that shines a light on the odds low-wage workers are up against in today’s economy,
Help Wanted
is a funny, moving tale of ordinary people trying to make a living.