Hot Desk

So charming and so accomplished , Hot Desk is by turns hilarious, heart-breaking, satirical, cutting and FUN. I absolutely loved it, and got way more than I bargained for in this dual-timeline tale of love and lust in publishing.

So charming and so accomplished , Hot Desk is by turns hilarious, heart-breaking, satirical, cutting and FUN. I absolutely loved it, and got way more than I bargained for in this dual-timeline tale of love and lust in publishing.

I absolutely adored this super smart and assured debut novel set in the New York publishing world of now and the 1980's. It's a romcom but also an exploration of how powerful men treat the powerless young women in their orbit. Fans of My Salinger Year, Tom Lake AND The Flatshare will love Hot Desk.

Rollicking and hilarious

Hot Desk is pure, grade-A, reader's delight. Dickerman's satire of the publishing industry across decades is pitch-perfect, revealing all of its blindspots and absurdities. But beneath all the laughs (and there's a lot of them) are serious and important questions about legacy, friendship, and who gets the right to tell a story. It's the sexiest, funniest book party you'll be invited to this year, and I promise you don't want to miss it.

The funniest novel I've read in ages! But also the most romantic! Hot Desk had me, by turns, laughing and swooning. This is a comedy of manners for anyone who loves Curtis Sittenfeld, Nora Ephron, Alison Espach or, well, anyone . So spot-on in its depiction of literary world mores, I nearly sprained my neck nodding in recognition. I challenge any reader not to fall in love with this charming debut.

A fresh take on classic rom-coms, Laura Dickerman's clever comedy of manners captures the timeless romance of literary New York.

A funny, deeply wise novel that captures all the thrills and aches of setting out in the world. Toggling seamlessly between 1981 and 2022 in New York City, Dickerman shows us that while Gen X and Gen Z may be very different, some things - friendship, ambition, the restorative magic of hangover takeout - are eternal.

Laura Dickerman has an MA in Fiction from NYU and an MA in English from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. She has taught high-school English at the Hopkins School, the Collegiate School for Boys, and Germantown Friends. She was an intern at The Paris Review many, many years ago. At her lowest point, she spent a month temping for her younger brother Colin at Grove/Atlantic where he was critical of her photocopying skills. She’s been a bookclub leader, tutor, and recipient of an NEH grant. She has lived in Vermont, New Haven, New York City, Philadelphia, Brussels, and currently in Atlanta with her husband. They have two grown daughters. Hot Desk is her first novel.