DEAR EDNA SLOANE

A restless millennial editor seeks connection with a former literary starlet in this epistolary novel.

Seth Edwards is one of New York City’s many literary hopefuls: He’s an Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum desperately seeking a book deal while working as an underpaid web editor. He hears whispers that one-hit-wunderkind Edna Sloane (“kinda like Harper Lee if Harper Lee had posed for photoshoots in spandex”), who vanished from the public eye four years after her 1986 debut novel, An Infinity of Traces, shoved her into the spotlight, is not only alive, but still living in the city. Eager to get in touch with a writer he admires, and convinced that securing an interview with Edna will make his career, Seth attempts to cold email his way into her life. When he finally does get her attention, she presents him with a challenge: “If you can convince me that people still care about books—novels—stories—then maybe—maybe—I’ll do the profile.” Shearn’s fourth novel is a collage of digital and analog correspondence and documents of all sorts, from Seth’s inquiries in a true-crime subreddit to an online listing for enamel pins of Edna—“We think the air of mystery adds to her glamour!” The book swings between Edna’s late-1980s Brat Pack readings and Seth’s late-2010s clickbait-content Wild West, offering a side-by-side that underlines how precarious publishing became in the intervening decades. The protagonists’ pen pal relationship is endearing, and the book provides commentary on the industry that will appeal to career book people and pleasure readers alike. Seth’s self-involved moaning is often funny and relatable, but Edna and her smartly written letters have such a glimmer to them that readers may find themselves wishing they could have spent the whole book with the “James Joyce-ette” who fled from fame and avoided Seth’s cliched proclamations of existential crisis.

This unevenly engaging book about the passions and woes of writers stands out for its form.