Allie Lang is a pro­fes­sion­al ghost­writer and a per­pet­u­al­ly broke sin­gle moth­er to a young boy. Years of nav­i­gat­ing her own and Amer­i­ca’s cul­tur­al def­i­n­i­tion of moth­er­hood have left her a lapsed ide­al­ist. Lana Bre­ban is a high-pro­file lawyer, econ­o­mist, and advo­cate for wom­en’s rights with designs on elect­ed office. She also has a son. Lana and her staff have decid­ed she needs help soft­en­ing her image in the eyes of the pub­lic, and that a mem­oir about her life as a moth­er will help. Allie strug­gles to write Lana’s book as obsta­cles pile up: not enough child­care, loom­ing dead­lines, an unre­spon­sive sub­ject, an ill-defined roman­tic rela­tion­ship on the verge of slip­ping away. Even­tu­al­ly, Lana comes to require far too much of Allie and even her son. Allie’s abil­i­ty to stand up for her­self and ask for all that she deserves will ulti­mate­ly deter­mine the pow­er that she can wield over her own life.

With the satir­i­cal eye of Tom Per­rot­ta’s Mrs. Fletch­er and the inci­sive­ness of Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Per­sua­sion, acclaimed writer Hei­di Pit­lor tells a time­ly, bit­ing­ly fun­ny, and insight­ful sto­ry of ambi­tion, moth­er­hood, and class.