Break in Case of Emergency A Novel

In her early thirties, Jen has all but abandoned a once-promising painting career when she takes a poorly defined job at a feminist nonprofit. The Leora Infinitis Foundation—or LIFt—claims to empower women, but staffers spend all their time devising acronyms for imaginary programs, ruthlessly undermining one another, and stroking the ego of their boss, a larger-than-life celebrity philanthropist.

Stuck in this passive-aggressive hellscape, Jen struggles with insecurity, especially when she compares herself to her two best friends, Meg and Pam—one a wealthy attorney with a picture-perfect family, the other a passionately committed artist. When the personal and the professional begin to collide in the course of a fateful art exhibition, a surreal business trip, and a devastating loss, it forces Jen to reckon with some hard truths about herself and the people she loves most.

Jessica Winter is features editor at Slate and the former culture editor of Time. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Bookforum, The Believer, and many other publications.

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