** Winner of the 2025 ANISFIELD-WOLF BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION | Finalist for the 2025 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION | Longlisted for the 2025 JOYCE CAROL OATES LITERARY PRIZE, the 2024 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE FICTION PRIZE and the 2025 CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION **'I LOVED this fresh, funny story ... A true page-turner' Daily Mail'Addictive, hilarious and relatable' Miranda July, author of All Fours'[A] gem from Danzy Senna ... Perceptive and bitingly funny' Vanity FairJane has high hopes that her life is about to turn around. After a long, precarious stretch bouncing among sketchy rentals and sublets, she and her family are living in luxury for a year, house-sitting in the hills above Los Angeles. The gig magically coincides with Jane's sabbatical, giving her the time and space she needs to finish her second novel-a centuries-spanning epic her artist husband, Lenny, dubs her "mulatto War and Peace. " Finally, some semblance of stability and success seems to be within her grasp. But things don't work out quite as hoped. Desperate for a plan B, like countless writers before her Jane turns her gaze to Hollywood. When she finagles a meeting with Hampton Ford, a hot producer with a major development deal at a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a "real writer, " and together they begin to develop "the Jackie Robinson of biracial comedies. " Things finally seem to be going right for Jane-until they go terribly wrong. Reader reviews:'A fantastic novel ...