Slush - by Halimah Marcus (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"The road to adulthood is paved with a million necessary mistakes, and Halimah Marcus's smart and affecting debut novel takes us along that treacherous, exhilarating path." --Maggie Shipstead, New York Times bestselling author of Great Circle

A spiky, sparkling coming-of-age about finding your place and your people, and how to hold yourself together when it all falls apart

It's 2010 and Ummi Jenkins is ready to reinvent herself in New York City. Freshly graduated, and free from the confines of her strict upbringing in a mostly white community of Sufi Muslims outside Philadelphia, she arrives on the first day of her dream internship at the prestigious literary magazine ambitious and out of her depth. Bringing coffee, digitizing the archives, wading through mountains of submissions -- whatever it takes to make a name for herself in the literary world, Ummi is prepared to get it done.

Her initiation is quick and unforgiving as Ummi faces some surprising firsts: first flirtation with an engaged coworker, first Cheeto-themed rave, first time meeting her literary hero, first court summons. But the one that outshines them all? First intern to discover a story from the "slush pile" and get it published in the magazine, with all the honor and passive-aggressive envy from her fellow interns that comes with it.

Soon Ummi finds herself weighing her need to fit in with her desire to stand out, and feels torn between her crush's mixed signals the bald flirtation of an up-and-coming writer. For the first time, becoming the kind of person she always dreamed of being seems within reach. But when the future of the magazine turns uncertain and her past keeps calling her home, Ummi has to figure out what kind of person that is before the new life she's just starting crumbles on top of her.

Keenly observed, wry, and brightly charming, Slush is a warm-hearted ode to that precarious time of life that's bursting with all the self-discovery, self-destruction, and possibilities of youth.

Review Quotes

Advance Praise for Slush

"The road to adulthood is paved with a million necessary mistakes, and Halimah Marcus's smart and affecting debut novel takes us along that treacherous, exhilarating path with a narrator you can't help but love: Ummi, who's trying hard to seize her life without knowing quite what it will be. Slush strikes the perfect balance between warm nostalgia and gimlet-eyed hindsight, and reading it is a delight." --Maggie Shipstead, New York Times bestselling author of Great Circle

"In this winning novel about ambition, art, and yearning during the halcyon days of Manhattan publishing, you'll come for the forbidden office romance and literary one-upmanship, but you'll stay for the hard-won lessons of young adulthood and desire." --Courtney Maum, author of Alan Opts Out

"Every page of this novel is a pleasure, full of wit and insight and sentences that dazzle. Like all the best coming-of-age stories, Slush dropped me viscerally back into the feeling of being in my twenties and on the verge of everything: love, career, self-discovery. Few novels are this insightful, this keenly funny, or so entertaining even as they radiate hard-won wisdom."--Julie Buntin, author of Marlena and Famous Men

"Slush is a smart, funny, sexy adventure through the halls of young adulthood..., written with the sharpness and intimacy of your most brilliant, heartfelt best friend. Slush reminded me why I love literature, and the people who love literature, and how reading can ground and expand a life."--Alyssa Songsiridej, author of Little Rabbit

About the Author

Halimah Marcus is the founding executive director of Electric Literature and the editor of Horse Girls (Harper Perennial, 2021), which was a New York Times "New and Noteworthy" pick. Her work has been supported by Yaddo and her short stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2022, Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, One Story, BOMB Magazine, The Literary Review and elsewhere. Halimah has an MFA from Brooklyn College, and lives in the Hudson Valley.