THE AUTHOR WEEKEND

A dark comedic thriller driven by envy, ego, and rage of a uniquely writerly variety.

There are four first-person narrators in this novel, a publishing-world satire crossed with a locked-room murder mystery. First is Jade Smythe, personal assistant to top women’s mystery novelist Faye Wader. Jade has organized a fan weekend for Faye on an island off the coast of New England, inspired by similar gatherings held by Faye’s rival, a more successful and charismatic author named Abby Schuss. (Faye would be played by Kathy Bates, Abby by Julia Roberts.) The jampacked agenda includes “Pre- Post- or Peri-Menopausal Mermaid Meditation on the Zen Deck,” “Bubbles and Bites on the Porch,” and much more. The other points of view belong to Faye herself, a cranky loner who is totally out of her element at her own shindig; Hal Tinder, Faye’s longtime agent; and Merry Golden, Faye’s editor at Hatchet House. (Zigman has a lot of fun with names.) Hal and Merry are ostensibly coming to the island to participate in a panel discussion, but they have bad news for Faye. The publisher is not going to buy her 15th novel—too much menopause! To make this experience even more painful for Faye, there are additional turns of the screw: Her number-one fan has uncovered a fatal inconsistency in her mythic origin story (emphasis on “fatal” here); her idiotic publicist, Xoey Catz, has shown up with her Instagram-famous feline and his bedazzled stroller; and Abby Schuss will be dropping in, too. Since Jade is an aspiring writer herself, a deliciously meta narrative line traces her text thread with her MFA cohort; she assures them she’s only involved in this philistine operation “for the plot,” which she describes as “And Then There Were None meets Misery meets White Lotus.” Some of the humor is a little broad, but as the plot thickens and the bodies start to turn up, Zigman has about the most fun she’s had on the page since her breakout 1998 debut, Animal Husbandry. It’s a comeback for sure.

A standout in the popular genre of literary-world satire.