Neon in Daylight: A Novel [Paperback]

ANew York Times Book ReviewEditors' Choice

A radiant first novel. . . . [Neon in Daylight] has antecedents in the great novels of the 1970s: Renata AdlersSpeedboat, Elizabeth HardwicksSleepless Nights, Joan DidionsPlay It as It Lays. . . . Precisionof observation, of languageis Hobys gift. Her sentences are sleek and tailored. Language molds snugly to thought. Parul Sehgal,The New York Times

What do you get when a writer of extreme intelligence, insight, style and beauty chronicles the lives of self-absorbed hedonistsThe Great Gatsby,Bright Lights, Big City, and nowNeon in Daylight. Hermione Hoby paints a garish world that drew me in and held me spellbound. She is a marvel. Ann Patchett, author ofCommonwealth

New York City in 2012, the sweltering summer before Hurricane Sandy hits. Kate, a young woman newly arrived from England, is staying in a Manhattan apartment while she tries to figure out her future. She has two unfortunate responsibilities during her time in America: to make regular Skype calls to her miserable boyfriend back home, and to cat-sit an indifferent feline named Joni Mitchell.

The city has other plans for her. In New York's parks and bodegas, its galleries and performance spaces, its bars and clubs crowded with bodies, Kate encounters two strangers who will transform her stay: Bill, a charismatic but embittered writer made famous by the movie version of his only novel; and Inez, his daughter, a recent high school graduate who supplements her Bushwick cafe salary by enacting the fantasies of men she meets on Craigslist. Unmoored from her old life, Kate falls into an infatuation with both of them.

Set in a heatwave that feels like it will never break,Neon In Daylightmarries deep intelligence with captivating characters to offer us a joyful, unflinching exploration of desire, solitude, and the thin line betweel#"