Help Yourself

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Sittenfeld's wryly hilarious and insightful new collection, HELP YOURSELF, illuminates human experience and gracefully upends our assumptions about class and race, envy and disappointment, gender dynamics and celebrity.

Suburban friends fall out after a racist encounter at a birthday party is caught on video and posted on Facebook; an illustrious Manhattan film crew are victims of their own snobbery when they underestimate a pre-school teacher from the Mid-West; and a group of young writers fight about love and narrative style as they compete for a prestigious bursary.

Connecting each of these three stories is Sittenfeld's truthful yet merciless eye, as her characters stagger from awkwardness, to humiliation and, if they're lucky, to reconciliation. Full of tenderness and compassion, this dazzling collection celebrates our humanity in all its pettiness and glory.

Praise for CURTIS SITTENFELD:

'Nobody else writes with such precison and amusement about the absolute inability of men and women to understand each other' RED MAGAZINE
'You won't want these stories to end' REESE WITHERSPOON
'Perfect miniatures in deadpan prose' GUARDIAN
'Clear-eyed and compulsive' MAIL ON SUNDAY

© Curtis Sittenfeld 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Critics Review

  • Sharp yet understated, assured but self-questioning, Sittenfeld take on race, sexism and the wokerati

    EVENING STANDARD

  • Sittenfeld is in a league of her own

    OBSERVER

  • A potent mix of biting truths, entertainment and rigorous social observation. Sittenfeld has never been sharper

    FINANCIAL TIMES

  • Sittenfeld has an analytical eye for the festering grudges and deep-seated disrespects of everyday life. Exceptionally sharp

    SUNDAY TIMES

  • Short, sharp, thought-provoking. Perfect for these times

    GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

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