The Adjunct: A Novel

**From the author of *How to Be Eaten* , a “darkly funny, deeply incisive” ( *Booklist* ) take on the campus novel that follows a woman on the edge gigging her way through academia’s poor job market when she crosses paths with her old PhD adviser, whose new novel might be about her.**
**A *LitHub* Most Anticipated Book of 2026 * “Tense...Witty...Impeccably written.” — *Glamour* , Best Books for Book Clubs 2026 * “A unicorn...Truly thought-provoking.” — *Bustle* , Best New Books of March**
Sam, an adjunct professor in Baltimore, is juggling five classes between two campuses when she crosses paths with her former grad school advisor, Dr. Tom Sternberg. The two have a complicated history, and it’s the last thing Sam wants to think about as she navigates academic politics, side hustles, applications for a dwindling number of tenure-track positions, and romantic entanglements with men and women that further complicate a sexuality not even she can define. Then she learns that Tom left his old job for undisclosed reasons—and his long-awaited second novel is about a professor reckoning with his checkered past. As rumors spread that Sam is the inspiration behind a central character, she fights to regain control of the story.
A hilarious yet sobering look at how hustle culture has come to define modern academia, *The Adjunct* offers a bold twist on a tangled MeToo story and turns Sam’s downward spiral into a searing critique of class and the hollow promises of the American dream.