Flat Earth

Levy debuts with a darkly funny work of hyperrealism about a broke New York City grad student on a self-destructive path as “right-wing nutrition fads fall into fashion” and the government moves to “legalize crime completely.” Avery, 26, is having trouble making sense of it all, at least for the manuscript she plans to write for her media studies program, and instead joins her best friend, Frances, on a road trip. Frances, who hails from a wealthy North Carolina family, is making a documentary about conservative conspiracy theorists, and the two visit, among other destinations, a Flat Earth Convention in Texas. Upon their return to New York, Avery takes Frances’s advice to have sex with billionaire men in exchange for her tuition, while Frances drops out to get married and move back home. As Levy outlines in interstitial chapters that read like news bulletins, women are increasingly relying on men as the economy crashes. Eventually, Avery begins working for Patriarchy, a dating app that caters to “incel-adjacent misogynists” and “young white women with low self-esteem,” initially as a copy writer and later as a paid escort. Levy’s pitch-perfect humor leavens the painful material, while her well-observed depiction of the women’s friendship holds it all together. Even as its characters make unfulfilling bargains with themselves and others, the novel never loses the fierceness of its gaze. It’s an astute and audacious satire. Agent: Michael Mungiello, InkWell Management. (Nov.)