Pounding the Pavement

Book excerpt: A laugh-out-loud debut novel about the minefield that is unemployment, the pursuit of the ultimate career, and the annoying habit of falling in love at inconvenient times. Sarah Pelletier is unemployed and in a very bad mood. Her film company has tanked—right before Christmas, no less—leaving her with one lousy swivel chair and a lifetime supply of paper clips. Her headhunter is a fool who can’t pronounce her name; her irritatingly gorgeous roommate’s idea of a fun time is to drag her to pink-slip parties; and, to top it all off, her last twelve bucks are trapped in a Metro Card. Something has got to give. So begins one smart twentysomething’s quest for the right job in New York City. After extricating herself from a morass of self-pity strewn with candy bar wrappers and wine bottles, Sarah turns to the all-important task of padding her résumé—while artfully dodging her parents’ attempts to bribe her into law school. Of course, padding your résumé puts you in jeopardy of being construed as over-qualified. In which case you might try unpadding your résumé, which then puts you in danger of being labeled inexperienced. Which leaves you with the option of stalking your ex-boss in the hope that she’ll drag you along in her ascent to greatness in another company. Unless she stabs you in the back first. Meanwhile, when a temp job saddles her with a massive crush on a Brooklyn-dwelling dreamboat named Jake, Sarah’s already full plate is crowded with lust, jealousy, and mild obsession, just when she’s trying to be professional. This hilarious first novel from a confident new voice in women’s fiction offers a pitch-perfect take on the dignity-whittling survival game of job hunting—starring a lovably neurotic heroine whose problems ring refreshingly true.