The Author Is Dead

A literary editor on the verge of losing her job discovers a masterpiece in her slush pile—but the author is already dead. Rather than let genius rot in obscurity, Lena Karp does the unthinkable: she invents a fake author and passes the book off as his debut. What follows is a snowballing catastrophe of hired actors, blackmailing relatives, ambitious assistants, and a publishing industry only too happy to worship a fraud. Sharp, hilarious, and ruthlessly observed, this is a love letter to books written by someone the book industry is trying to kill.