Glow

'Jane Austen on steroids. It's that sharp, that wicked, that laceratingly true' Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours'Intoxicating . . . A wellness tonic for people who like to make fun of the wellness industry' Leigh Stein, author of Self CareJane Dorner has two modes:PR Jane is twenty-five, breezy, clever in a non-threatening way and eager to sell you a feminist vibrator.Actual Jane is twenty-nine, drifting through mediocre workdays and lackluster dates while paralysed by her crushing mountain of overdue bills. Enter the impossibly gorgeous Cass, whom Jane discovers scrolling through Instagram - the guru of a 'wellness retreat' based out of a ramshackle country house that may or may not be giving off cult vibes. Suddenly Jane realises she might have found the one ladder she can climb.But inner peace and glowing skin will always come at a price...

Jessie Gaynor's wildly funny, laser-eyed novel is Jane Austen on steroids. It's that sharp, that wicked, that laceratingly true, The Glow is the first truly dead-on satire of wellness culture, understanding it as not just a consumer trend, but a way of thinking and speaking. With terrifying wit, Jessie Gaynor shreds the overrated virtues of prosperity and healthy moisture barriers, and extols the underrated virtues of irony and sanity, Deliciously tart, fizzy, and absolutely intoxicating, The Glow is like a slim can of hard kombucha: a wellness tonic for people who like to make fun of the wellness industry, Gaynor's sharpened blades are out for the wellness industry and its cult-like devotion to personal brands, but The Glow is more than just incisive observation and pitch-perfect satire. There's a deep well of human ambition and desire at the root of this story, not to mention a sharp plot that bounds ahead with the assurance of the best thrillers. Gaynor builds layer on layer of mystery out of everyday human yearning, creating a whole that's deeply satisfying and always surprising, Jessie Gaynor's writing is wickedly funny and sly in its observations, pairing human truths with a setting that can only belong to our present moment. The Glow manages to be both savvy in its sendup of the social-media-influencing world and empathic in its portrayal of the millions who flock to it. I tore through the book in a state of pure delight, pining to return to it whenever trivialities like 'work' or 'sleep' so rudely interrupted

Jessie Gaynor's work has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The New Yorker, WSJ. Magazine and elsewhere. She is a senior editor at Literary Hub and she has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a Rona Jaffe fellow. She lives in Richmond, Virginia with her family.