A NOVEL OBSESSION

A writer looking for inspiration stalks and befriends her boyfriend’s ex in this stylish, energetic debut.

Naomi Ackerman is a sparsely published 24-year-old writer who has recently entered into her first committed relationship with Caleb, a Welsh expatriate who works in catastrophe modeling. Deeply insecure, both about her slow-to-start literary career (she lives rent-free in a Greenwich Village apartment—no excuses!) and her new relationship (does he love her or just the convenient location of her apartment?), Naomi is unprepared to learn that Caleb’s ex-girlfriend Rosemary lives in Brooklyn and edits for a major imprint. What begins as anxious curiosity quickly and compellingly escalates into obsession. Naomi orchestrates accidental run-ins with Rosemary and deceives her into becoming her rock-climbing partner, editor, confidante, and friend. All the while, Naomi greedily mines their interactions for material, altering details on the page as she does in real life, where lies and half-truths proliferate. At once a compassionate portrait of someone so desperate for intimacy that she can’t help but sabotage it and an incisive study of female friendship at its most toxic and proprietary, this dread-laden psychological thriller is smart, jarring, and funny. Its imperfections—occasionally clumsy dialogue (at one point, Naomi's otherwise savvy grandmother says, “I’ve been bingeing—is that the word you use?—The Crown”) and a climax that lacks much of the force of the buildup—distract from but don’t quite diminish the bewitching effect of the narrator. Naomi, as a character, is electric; her sinister fixation (“I’ve turned into a more dangerous—but more purposeful—version of myself,” she surmises) is as unsettling as it is contagious.

Propulsive storytelling and an irresistible narrator from a sharp new writer.