The Adjunct - by Maria Adelmann (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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 at a public university in Baltimore, takes a last-minute position at the private liberal arts college down the road. Overworked and underpaid, she lives in a blur of back-to-back classes, side hustles, and job applications for an ever-dwindling number of tenure-track jobs. Her already precarious existence is thrown into disarray when she runs into her former grad school adviser, Dr. Tom Sternberg, on campus.

Tom and Sam have a complicated history, and it's the last thing she wants to think about as she navigates academic politics, institutional hurdles, 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.

An "entertaining, provocative" (Brooklyn Rail) 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.

Review Quotes

"The Adjunct turns an unflinching eye on academic precarity. . . . Adelmann's sharply observed prose captures the claustrophobia of intellectual labor and the subtle violence of being underestimated." --BookTrib

"A brutal, timely, reimagining and takedown of the classic campus novel, told through the eyes of an adjunct, barely subsisting on the wages from five classes at two different colleges, without the privileges or respect accorded to old guard tenured faculty. So good." --Joanna Rakoff, The Literary Edit

"A darkly funny, deeply incisive exploration of academia's underbelly. Through Sam's eyes, [Adelmann] exposes the absurd hierarchies and quiet humiliations of academic life with biting wit and emotional precision. Both a campus novel and a social reckoning, The Adjunct holds up an unflinching mirror to the systems that exploit passion in the name of prestige." --Booklist

"This exposé of academia from the perspective of its most vulnerable residents offers a vital message at a time when it's easy to forget what's supposed to be at the center of all institutions: people--messy, unpredictable, and filled with fragile hope. A crucial new take on the time-honored tradition of the Campus Novel." --Kirkus Reviews

"A good writer might have a stance on some of the important issues of their time; a great writer will push the conversation further, as Maria Adelmann has done with The Adjunct. It's an outrageous, smart novel about the rat race of academia, the MeToo movement, and debt from a writer whose masterful sleight of hand is saying the quiet parts loud, who is not afraid to sit in the uncomfortable gray space--and to paint it with even more hues. Conversational yet piercing, this is a powerful portrait of a woman in dire circumstances. This book has bite and one of the most damning endings I've ever read. I'm obsessed." --Katie Yee, author of Maggie; or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar

"A slashing tale of academia's exploitative gig economy and the aftermath of the #MeToo movement . . . Adelmann takes an unsparing and witty view of academia's 'pyramid scheme' . . . This clever campus novel mischievously inverts John Williams's Stoner." --Publishers Weekly

"The status inequities and power dynamics in academia are put on full display in a bleak but satirical way, spotlighting how academia exploits adjunct labor and the seemingly impossible game of catch-up that tenure-track hopefuls are forced to play. Adelmann prompts exploration about who has the power or right to control a public narrative that is eerily apt in the current social climate." --Library Journal

"Disarmingly deft, surprisingly suspenseful, and full of delicious rage and language play. I have been waiting a long time for this satisfying novel about the crumbling of academia and the truth-warping storm of labor exploitation and intellectual grifting it leaves behind. A stay-up-all-night page-turner and a burning indictment of the creative class's addictions and fantasies. I inhaled this book." --Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of Housemates

"Entertaining, provocative . . . The Adjunct is a ripped-from-the-headlines dispatch from the front lines of the campus wars . . . both satirically absurd and sadly realistic." --Brooklyn Rail

"Maria Adelmann takes the campus novel to new, jittery, and visceral places with The Adjunct. This darkly comic novel is anxiety-provoking in the best of ways as it explodes the seamy guts of the academy, unravels the fabric of MeToo, and bursts the mystique of authorial intent. Adelmann's titular adjunct, Sam, feels so real that I bit my cheeks to shreds as her life implodes over and over until the jaw-dropping end. Beyond the visceral reading experience, I have to applaud the novel's craft, the cochlear structure that whirls in upon itself, only to finish in an open space. I loved the literary doubling, the mille-feuille of textual references, and the constant, inescapable thrum of late-stage capitalism." --Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger

"This novel is a tense yet witty exploration of the ups and (mostly) downs of adjunct life at the most elite colleges; it will open up discussions about labor rights, institutional stratification, and academia on the whole. . . . Adelmann provides impeccably written prose." --Glamour, "Best Books for Book Clubs in 2026"

"Turns the campus novel on its head . . . a blistering examination of the gig economy at work in higher education." --BookPage

"Adelmann's frank, sometimes darkly funny novel is a revealing depiction of the professional and personal challenges facing a young adjunct English professor." --Shelf Awareness

About the Author

Maria Adelmann is the award-winning author of the story collection Girls of a Certain Age and the novel How to Be Eaten, an NPR book of the year and Belletrist book club pick. She has written for The New York Times, Tin House, n+1, Electric Literature, McSweeney's, and many other publications, and her work has been distinguished by The Best American Short Stories. Adelmann has lived in Baltimore and Copenhagen and now resides in Philadelphia.