HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Who’s have thought we’d WANT to go to work? I work in front of my computer now, and on the phone, feeding zoom video of interviews and standups back to the station where those still working edit it all together. It is a crazy mixture of primitive and internet age.
And I miss...my pals. And takeout lunches at my desk. And going places. And a little bit of the constant—constant!—office intrigue. Granted, I’m used to working at home, too, and I do love it. And as the amazing Andrea Bartz has also discovered, having to be at home is different from wantingto be at home.
Let me say, first—even home alone you can hear the buzz about THE HERD. Right? It’s one of the most discussed, most intriguing, most innovative books this year! But I’ll let her tell you about it.
Oh! And a copy to one VERY lucky commenter.
ARE YOU MISSING THE MEETINGS?
by Andrea Bartz
After lighthouse operators and Antarctica researchers, I should’ve been the best-prepared human for self-isolation on earth.
I haven’t put on pants and gone into work regularly in more than five years. I’m a writer now, cranking out freelance articles alongside annual mysteries; the latest is The Herd, which came out on March 24, a “smart, twisty thriller” (thanks, Publishers Weekly!) set in an exclusive all-female coworking space in New York City. On Friday, the Los Angeles Times said, “Bartz has been widely hailed as a master of the 'feminist thriller,' and both 'The Herd' and her 2019 debut novel, 'The Lost Night,' are deftly constructed page-turners starring flawed female protagonists whose successes are stymied by sexism — implicit, explicit and systemic,” and I think those very nice words tell you what you need to know about my kind of fiction.
(ed note from Hank: Nice words? Booklist called The Herd “guaranteed armchair escapism” and Kirkus called it “a soapy and fun womancentric thriller.” Yes, womancentric—they invented a word for Andrea! )
But yes, I’m a solitary creature, working on my books and articles in solitude from my “office,” which is in, in fact, an Ikea desk wedged between the foot of my bed and the back of my sofa in my 350-square-foot Brooklyn studio. My cat provided more than enough company, and my Rear Window-like view into back of the townhouses across the courtyard made me feel like a capital-a Author living out her own noirish existence.
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| Someone’s probably murdering someone outside my window. |
And then the pandemic hit, and I’ve realized what a social creature I really am.
Work dates with fellow writers, drinks with former coworkers, lunches with perky publicists eager to sneak their clients into my articles: all snuffed out like the falling lid of a coffin, whump. Now that I can’t see people, I’m noticing just how starved I am for human contact. Last night I dreamed about a work meeting. A meeting! PowerPoints and agendas and Gen X’ers scribbling in their notebooks while those under 35 type directly into their laptops, possibly listening but probably on iMessage! These are the mundane moments I’m suddenly nostalgic for.
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| My writing assistant, though cute, is quite taciturn. Until she wants a treat |
When I set The Herd inside a bougie coworking space (a space where women, by definition, don’t need to be to do their jobs yet choose to Uber into for the benefit of company), I had no idea I wouldn’t be able to promote it in person.I’ve had more Zoom sessions this week than in all the weeks of the rest of my life combined, but FaceTime is no substitute for face-time, as the savvy businesswomen of the Herd (and all its real-life counterparts—the Wing, the Riveter, the Luminary, etc.) know. Nationwide, workers are realizing how much social nourishment they got from office drama and water cooler chitchat.
Who doesn’t love a delicious bit of workplace gossip?
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| Add Portrait of a Writer Accidentally Torturing her Only Colleague |
What about you—are you missing your coworkers? Or enjoying the respite from binding office attire and annoying commutes and boring meetings that could totally be an email? Are you enjoying seeing your colleagues’ children and pets and weird bedspread and weird spouse lurking in the background of Zoom meetings? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
And hey, if you or someone you love (#gifts!) needs some quarantine reading and you want to feel embroiled in office drama again, The Herd is the word, ya heard?
Stay safe and well and engaged out there!
HANK: I just burst out laughing. Yes I am suddenly obsessed with my background in the zoom shots, and the lighting. Where’s the lighting person? Oh, they can’t come over.
Reds and readers, what do you think about Andrea’s questions? Are you missing your coworkers? Or enjoying the respite? Realizing how much faster email might be? And how much fun is it to see your colleagues’ children and pets and weird bedspread and weird spouse lurking in the background of Zoom meetings? (I am loving that part! Oh, lookit that wallpaper? WHAT were they thinking?)
And a copy of THE HERD to two lucky commenters! (See below for the past week’s winners!)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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| copyright Kate Lord |
Andrea Bartz is a Brooklyn-based journalist and author of the new thriller THE HERD. Her debut thriller, THE LOST NIGHT (Crown, 2019), is being developed for TV by Mila Kunis. Andi hails from Milwaukee and studied journalism at Northwestern University before moving to New York to become a magazine editor. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Women's Health, Martha Stewart Living, Elle, and many other outlets, and she's held editorial positions at Glamour, Psychology Today, and Self, among other titles. She enjoys wooded parks, good cheese, and her energetic rescue cat, Mona.
And the WINNERS
of Jennifer Alderson’s THE VERMEER DECEPTION E-book are Kathy Reel and Grace Koshida
of Tessa Wegert’s DEATH IN THE FAMILY; Kathyc23
of Art Taylor’s The Boy Detectirve and the Summer of 74. Deana Dale and Kait
Email me your addresses! hryan at whdh dot com
