The Blackmailer’s Guide to Love

The sparkling latest from Thurm (Today Is Not Your Day) looks back on the heyday of glossy magazine publishing. In 1978, 25-year-old Mel Fleischer is working at an unnamed magazine as an assistant to cranky literary editor Austin Bloch. When Mel isn’t making copies or rejecting submissions from the slush pile, she’s writing and submitting her own short stories, one of which, to her surprise, is accepted by the New Yorker. Mel is married to supportive if not entirely reliable therapist Charlie, and the story of one of his clients, Julia Myerson, a PhD student with a failed marriage and dried-up teaching position, is chronicled in a parallel narrative. When the relationship between Charlie and Julia starts to slip out of professional bounds, it threatens to affect the bond between Mel and Charlie. Those familiar with Thurm’s writing career will notice significant parallels, which gives the novel a bouncy roman à clef charm. While the characters’ emotions often run high, such as when Mel meets the New Yorker’s editor (“The words love at first sight, sort of, are what come to her; but really it’s more a profound awe and reverence”), for the most part Thurm mellows them out with a detached distance. This will please those looking to feed their nostalgia for a bygone era. Agent: Robin Rue, Writers House. (May)