Beverly Hills Adjacent

Steinhauer and Hendra's debut casts a reproachful gaze on the television industry as hopeful actor Mitch Gold stumbles from audition to audition. It's pilot season, and as Mitch fails to land a role and his career woes burden his marriage, his wife, UCLA poetry professor June Dietz, begins to lose sight of tenure and catch the eye of a television writer. Though Mitch is affable and insecure, there's a predictable rhythm to his troubles: first, he auditions, then he panics. Hendra and Steinhauer are at their best when they stick to June, who is lovable and sympathetic: an amateur gourmet with a caustic wit and a longing for New York, she loves her daughter and despises the mommy politicking that runs rampant at preschool, providing a rich line of comedy as svelte mommies say they love cupcakes before cutting them into bits and spitting them out, and ostracize June for having a career. The marriage and Hollywood troubles will be familiar to fans of light Tinseltown fare, but the authors' sense of humor gives this book plenty of pep. (May)