First published 2016
Tess arrives in New York City at twenty-two with little more than ambition. She gets hired as a backwaiter at a prestigious downtown Manhattan restaurant, stepping into a world she barely understands. The restaurant becomes her classroom as she learns about champagne service and cocaine habits, fine dining protocols and dive bar culture. Her education extends beyond the professional as her desires grow stronger for food, wine, knowledge, and connection. She becomes entangled in a dangerous love triangle that pulls her deeper into the restaurant's intoxicating atmosphere. Tess must navigate the relentless pace and brutal beauty of restaurant work while discovering what it means to belong somewhere. The kitchen and dining room reveal both infinite possibility and crushing reality as she comes of age in an unforgiving city.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, adult-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: New York City, Manhattan
Period: 21st-century
356 pages · Hardcover · Knopf
Content warnings: drug-use, explicit-sexual-content