A Hole in the Story - by Ken Kalfus (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A prescient, high-stakes novel dissecting the ways we tell stories-privately and publicly-amid radical social change. At his desk one day, prominent Washington commentator Adam Zweig receives a text message. "Btw want to give you a heads-up abt some breaking news," it reads. "Call soonest." These are the early rumblings of an eventual media storm generated by small-town reporter Valerie Iovine, who has gone public with her account of sexual harassment at the hands of esteemed editor and liberal icon Max Lieberthol. Twenty years have passed since the incident, and though Adam wasn't directly involved, he quickly finds himself implicated and entangled, his career under imminent threat. Adam has never forgotten his history with Valerie: as former colleagues, their workplace collaboration had gradually tipped into a mutual romantic attraction. Or so he believed. Confronted by the claims against his former boss and a growing awareness of rampant sexism in his industry, Adam, who had always thought of himself as progressive, is forced to challenge his own assumptions over the years. What once seemed incidental becomes sinister; what once seemed like a blundering encounter helped derail a young woman's promising career."--

Book Synopsis

A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2025

A Kirkus Starred Review

"A cunning writer with masterful timing and an outrageous sense of humor."--Gary Shteyngart

An irreverent, darkly comic novel dissecting the misjudgments, hypocrisies, and occasional good motives that drive our politics and our journalism, as well as our most intimate personal relations.

At his desk one day, prominent Washington commentator Adam Zweig receives a text message. "Btw want to give you a heads-up abt some breaking news," it reads. "Call soonest." These are the early rumblings of an eventual media storm generated by small-town reporter Valerie Iovine, who has gone public with her account of sexual harassment at the hands of esteemed editor and liberal icon Max Lieberthol. Twenty years have passed since the incident, and though Adam wasn't directly involved, he quickly finds himself implicated and entangled, his career under imminent threat.

Adam has never forgotten his history with Valerie: as former colleagues, their workplace collaboration had gradually tipped into a mutual romantic attraction. Or so he believed. Confronted by the claims against his former boss and a growing awareness of rampant sexism in his industry, Adam, who had always thought of himself as progressive, is forced to challenge his own assumptions over the years. What once seemed incidental becomes sinister; what once seemed like a blundering encounter helped derail a young woman's promising career.

Sly and ironic, A Hole in the Story explores one imperfect man's dilemmas as he tries to keep his feet in a shifting moral landscape.

Review Quotes

Praise for A Hole in the Story

"A Hole in the Story is nuanced, sure-footed, dryly funny, and unpredictable. If there were such a thing as a social-mores thriller, this would be it."--Alessandra Stanley, Air Mail

"Kalfus is in top form in this slim but powerful novel. Its intelligent engagement with a complex topic will make potent fodder for book groups and coffee house conversations."--Library Journal, starred review

"An edgy, discomfiting look at the alpha males of journalism in the age of #MeToo. [A HOLE IN THE STORY is] a taut, uncomfortable look at a man forced into a reckoning that's much more personal than he'd like."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"In A Hole in the Story, Ken Kalfus takes readers back to the frenzy and optimism of the early days of the Me Too movement--albeit from a slightly cynical lens."--Electric Literature

"With wise concision and wry humor, [Ken Kalfus] has limned some 'comically appalling' aspects of our contemporary culture."--Dick Pulman, Daily Journal

Praise for Ken Kalfus

"A cunning writer with masterful timing and an outrageous sense of humor."--Gary Shteyngart

"One of America's greatest living writers."--Jonathan Safran Foer

"Ken Kalfus is an important writer in every sense of 'important.' There are hip, funny writers, and there are smart, technically innovative writers, and there are wise, moving, and profound writers. Kalfus is all these at once."--David Foster Wallace

"No one is comfortable in Kalfus's universe, and no one is ever exactly at home."--New York Times

"One of contemporary literature's best-kept secrets."--Esquire

"When Kalfus finally strikes that match, we readers finally see the light."--Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air

"Kalfus has a gift for penetrating to the core of current events and presenting issues in a provocative way."--Washington Post

"It's a rare writer who can combine keen, grounded, psychological observation with visionary headiness."--Salon

About the Author

Ken Kalfus has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and he has received a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He is the author of four novels, including 2 A.M. in Little America and Equilateral, and has published three short story collections. He has written for the New York Times, Harper's, the New Yorker, and the New York Review of Books and his books have been translated into more than ten foreign languages. Born in New York, Kalfus currently resides in Philadelphia.