First published 2026
Barbara Rosenberg lies dying in her cluttered Manhattan apartment, high on painkillers and determined to tell her story. She chronicles her decades as a receptionist for a shady plastic surgeon, her brief glory as a jazzercise enthusiast, and her abandoned dreams of film noir stardom. Her deceased husband was crude. Her career disappointed her. But Barbara saves her sharpest words for her two greatest heartbreaks: the trans son who no longer speaks to her and the best friend whose long-ago betrayal still burns. As the opioids take hold and her condition worsens, Barbara's narrative becomes increasingly unhinged. Her rants about gender, Marx, and Zionism blur with memories and hallucinations. The line between her real circumstances and her fevered imagination dissolves as figures from her past seem to close in on her. This is Barbara's final chance to justify herself, to explain her failures as a mother and friend, and to deliver one last furious monologue about a life that never matched her expectations.
Genres: contemporary, adult-fiction, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Manhattan
Period: Contemporary
304 pages · Hardcover · One World
Content warnings: mental-illness