WILDCAT

A writer in Los Angeles with a new baby and a first book on the way finds motherhood has changed her view of things.

As Morris' snappy debut opens, Leanne and her husband, James, are about to drop off their barky dog at WagVille and drive to Palm Springs for the lavish anniversary party of Leanne's wealthy, self-absorbed frenemy (on the way to regular old enemy), Regina. They don't really want to go, but "it'll be good for the book," says Leanne. Diary of a Home Cook: A Year in Recipes is coming out in five months, and among Regina's entourage is a journalist who might cover it. Regina is no doubt a snob and a phony, but Leanne, too, has traits that add to the negative potential of their relationship—envy, ambition, and a dangerously complete mastery of social media. When she discovers that on top of everything else Regina is an anti-vaxxer, she declares war via Instagram, incidentally offering the reader a complete guide to trolling. (Note: the book is set not in the pandemic but during a measles outbreak.) Morris has her finger on the pulse of many things: the sweetness of early motherhood, the grief of losing a parent, the ups and downs of launching a life in writing, the role of economic and career status in female friendships. Like Dana Spiotta's Wayward but funnier, the novel is also a hard look at the role of social media in women's lives. If it sounds like men don't play a big role in this book, they don't. There are just two male characters: James, the mostly offstage but very nice husband, and a nightmarish writing workshop student named Earl, whose trajectory is quite unexpected. Morris is also unusually gentle with her heroine, giving her a supercool bestselling author for a mentor and punishing her less severely for her mistakes than in the traditional fiction model.

A smart, juicy, of-the-moment read.