Help Wanted: A Novel

Every day at 3:55 a.m., members of Team Movement clock in for their shift at big-box store Town Square in a small upstate New York town. Under the eyes of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the days truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before the store opens and customers arrive. Their lives follow a familiar if grueling routine, but their real problem is that Town Square doesnt schedule them for enough hoursmost of them are barely getting by, even while working second or third jobs. When store manager Big Will announces he is leaving, the members of Movement spot an opportunity. If they play their cards right, one of them just might land a management job, with all the stability and possibility for advancement that that implies. The members of Team Movementincluding a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging on to her cool kid status from high school, and a college football hopeful trying to find a new pathband together to set a just-so-crazy-it-might-work plot in motion.

Adelle Waldmans debut novel was a breakout sensation, lauded by the Los Angeles Times as an exacting character study with excellent and witty prose and described as incisive and very funny by the Economist and brilliant by both NPRs Fresh Air and the Washington Post. In her long-awaited follow-up, Waldman brings her unparalleled wit and astute social observation to the world of modern, low-wage work. A humane and darkly comic workplace caper that shines a light on the odds low-wage workers are up against in todays economy, Help Wanted is a funny, moving tale of ordinary people trying to make a living.