Writers and Lovers

Writers & Lovers is a work of contemporary fiction published in 2020 by the American author Lily King. Selected for inclusion in book clubs such as Read with Jenna and Belletrist, Writers & Lovers is a New York Times bestseller. King’s three other novels—Father of The Rain (2010), The English Teacher (2005), and The Pleasing Hour (1999)—earned King the Maine Fiction Award, a finalist honor for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the Whiting Writers’ Award, respectively.

Writers & Lovers is a compelling yet muted exploration of a young woman rediscovering herself in her creativity after loss. The novel explores issues of grief, romance, sexuality, and anxiety, and reflects upon the contemporary social problems in the life of a writer. Writers & Lovers twists the modern bildungsroman by presenting the story of a woman who must grow up again in the face of societal and emotional challenges.

Plot Summary

Casey Kasem is a 31-year-old struggling writer. Most of her friends have moved on to stable careers and marriages while Casey remains single and working as a server at a high-end restaurant in Boston. Furthermore, Casey has been working on a novel for six years inspired by her mother’s life in Cuba. The book begins with Casey reeling from the recent and random death of her mother, and Casey’s grief follows her around and informs her relationships and decision-making processes, including her approach to the novel.

Casey spends a summer at a writer’s retreat where her passion for a poet named Luke derails her confidence, and she writes nothing for weeks. Back in Boston, Casey lives in a potting shed rented out to her by Adam, an old friend of her brother’s. Her restaurant shifts are stressful and don’t provide enough money for Casey to pay off any of her student loan debts, but her job does give her time for writing. One night, still sad about her mother and Luke, her friend Muriel brings her to an author’s book release party where Casey meets Silas, another writer. Her attraction to Silas puts Casey on guard, even though she’s intrigued. The party is for Oscar Kolton, a successful and older author whom Casey meets later, when his two young songs John and Jasper try to pay for their meal at her restaurant. Oscar and Silas both ask Casey out, and at first, she dates both of them, trying to decide about whom to choose. Oscar is successful, stable, and generous, whereas Silas makes Casey feel heard and her passion for him is singularly intense. Casey decides to place her bets on Oscar but discovers that he’s just as egotistical and jealous as the other men in her life.

While navigating her love life, Casey struggles to finish her book until one day, she finally realizes the book is done. Muriel reviews it for her and encourages her to submit it to literary agents. After many rejections, Casey hears from Jennifer Lin, a new agent who is passionate about her project. Meanwhile, Casey’s grief and stress build until she begins having panic attacks at work. The loss of her mother brings with it memories of her problematic adolescence, when her mother left the family for an affair for a year and Casey lived with her father, whom she found voyeuristically pleasing himself at the secretive image of high school girls changing. Her closest family member, her brother Caleb, lives far away, and when he does visit her, she discovers that he too has been navigating grief and difficult changes in his love life. Casey is fired from her job right around the same time that Adam informs her that he is selling the land her shed is on, leaving Casey unemployed and potentially homeless.

While Casey deals with grief, poverty, and what feels more and more like a pipe dream that she can’t quit, she discovers a slew of potentially serious health issues. Finally, with the help of Muriel and Caleb, Casey starts to settle the problems in her life. Caleb helps her find a therapist, and Muriel helps her get a job as a high school English teacher at a progressive private school, a job that brings stability and unexpected joy. In her newfound world of happiness, the good news continues; Casey sells her book to a publisher for enough money to get out of debt and move into her dream apartment, and she and Silas get back together. By the end of the novel, Casey has discovered happiness and how to come to terms with her mother’s death, beginning the process of letting go of her crippling grief.