A01=Maria Adelmann
academia
academic satire
adjunct professor struggles
adjunct professors
adjuncting
adjuncts
andrew sean greer
Author_Maria Adelmann
books like vladimir
campus life
campus novel
Category=FBA
Category=FU
Category=FUP
college
college professors
contemporary fiction
elif batuman
english literature
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
funny books
funny fiction
gig economy
girls of a certain age
grad school
higher education
how to be eaten
humor
humorous novels
hustle culture
less
light academia
literary fiction
MeToo era
millennial
power dynamics
professor
professors
satire
satirical fiction
the hypocrite
the idiot
tragicomic novel
vladimir
Product details
- ISBN 9781668089972
- Weight: 417g
- Dimensions: 140 x 213mm
- Publication Date: 21 May 2026
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2026 * Glamour's Best Books for Book Clubs 2026 * Bustle's Best New Books of March
From the acclaimed author of How to Be Eaten, a fresh take on the campus novel that follows an adjunct professor gigging her way through academia’s poor job market when she crosses paths with her old PhD adviser, whose new novel might be about her—for readers of Worry, Vladimir, and Less.
Sam, an adjunct professor at a public university in Baltimore, takes a last-minute gig at the private liberal arts college down the road. Overworked and underpaid, she lives in a blur of back-to-back classes, side hustles, and job applications for an ever-dwindling number of tenure-track positions. Her already precarious existence is thrown into disarray when she runs into her former grad school adviser, Dr. Tom Sternberg, on campus.
Tom and Sam have a complicated history, and it’s the last thing she wants to think about as she navigates academic politics, institutional hurdles, and romantic entanglements with men and women that further complicate a sexuality not even she can define. Then she learns that Tom left his old job for undisclosed reasons—and his long-awaited second novel is about a professor reckoning with his checkered past. As rumors spread that Sam is the inspiration behind a central character, she fights to regain control of the story.
A hilarious yet sobering look at how hustle culture has come to define modern academia, The Adjunct offers a bold twist on a tangled MeToo story and turns Sam’s downward spiral into a searing critique of class and the hollow promises of the American dream.
From the acclaimed author of How to Be Eaten, a fresh take on the campus novel that follows an adjunct professor gigging her way through academia’s poor job market when she crosses paths with her old PhD adviser, whose new novel might be about her—for readers of Worry, Vladimir, and Less.
Sam, an adjunct professor at a public university in Baltimore, takes a last-minute gig at the private liberal arts college down the road. Overworked and underpaid, she lives in a blur of back-to-back classes, side hustles, and job applications for an ever-dwindling number of tenure-track positions. Her already precarious existence is thrown into disarray when she runs into her former grad school adviser, Dr. Tom Sternberg, on campus.
Tom and Sam have a complicated history, and it’s the last thing she wants to think about as she navigates academic politics, institutional hurdles, and romantic entanglements with men and women that further complicate a sexuality not even she can define. Then she learns that Tom left his old job for undisclosed reasons—and his long-awaited second novel is about a professor reckoning with his checkered past. As rumors spread that Sam is the inspiration behind a central character, she fights to regain control of the story.
A hilarious yet sobering look at how hustle culture has come to define modern academia, The Adjunct offers a bold twist on a tangled MeToo story and turns Sam’s downward spiral into a searing critique of class and the hollow promises of the American dream.
Maria Adelmann is the award-winning author of the story collection Girls of a Certain Age and the novel How to Be Eaten, an NPR book of the year and Belletrist book club pick. She has written for The New York Times, Tin House, n+1, Electric Literature, McSweeney’s, and many other publications, and her work has been distinguished by The Best American Short Stories. Adelmann has lived in Baltimore and Copenhagen and now resides in Philadelphia.
