I Was Told There'd Be Cake [Paperback]

Hailed by David Sedaris as perfectly, relentlessly funny and by Colson Whitehead as sardonic without being cruel, tender without being sentimental, from the author of the new collectionLook Alive Out There. 

Wry, hilarious, and profoundly genuine, this debut collection of literary essays is a celebration of fallibility and haplessness in all their glory.

From despoiling an exhibit at the Natural History Museum to provoking the ire of her first boss to siccing the cops on her mysterious neighbor, Crosley can do no right despite the best of intentions -- or perhaps because of them. Together, these essays create a startlingly funny and revealing portrait of a complex and utterly recognizable character who aims for the stars but hits the ceiling, and the inimitable city that has helped shape who she is.I Was Told There'd Be Cakeintroduces a strikingly original voice, chronicling the struggles and unexpected beauty of modern urban life.“Sloane Crosley is another mordant and mercurial wit from the realm of Sedaris and Vowell. What makes her so funny is that she seems to be telling the truth, helplessly.”  —Jonathan LethemSloane Crosley is the author of the new collectionLook Alive Out There,the novelThe Clasp, and the bestselling essay collections How Did You Get This NumberandI Was Told There'd Be Cake, which was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Her essays and criticism have appeared inThe New York Times, New York Observer, the Village Voice, Playboy, Teen Vogue, Salon, Black Book, Radar, Maxim, andThe Believer. She lives in New York City.The Pony Problem

As most New Yorkers have done, I have given serious and generous thought to the state of my apartment should I get killed during the day. Say someone pushes me onto the subway tracks. Or I get accidentally blown up. Or a woman with a headset and a baby carriage wheels over ml³.