But that didn’t make sense. He first broke up with me a few years ago because I wasn’t successful and independent enough. He wanted a partner, not a wife, he said. Also, this is just an aside, but the main character never showed any desire to actually be in the TV industry. I was confused why she was putting up with any of this when she didn’t really even seem to care. She has an idea of what she wants her life to be but she is just starting to learn that maybe none of that will make her happy. In addition to her work life we see her romantic life and in particular her regular interactions with her mother, who is paying for a lot of the things our narrator can't afford on her small salary, and who constantly demands her time and attention. Her mother in particular is a fascinating character, and a type we have seen often in the last decade, a woman who knows and understands the structures that men use to assault women, who knows how difficult it is to bring charges up at work or to the police, and a woman who will say "Oh Robert didn't do that," when the man involved is a friend.

The compulsively readable novel about a young woman trying to succeed in Hollywood without selling her soul - perfect for fans of Sweetbitter , My Dark Vanessa and Exciting Times A frank account of the inherent filthiness of leaning in. A study of the psychological and at times, literal, gymnastics that are required of striving women." - Raven Leilani The compulsively readable novel about a young woman trying to succeed in Hollywood without selling her soul - perfect for fans of Sweetbitter, My Dark Vanessa and Exciting Times We urgently need to develop avenues for conversations about all the behaviour that lives in this grey space. We also need to stop blindly applauding powerful women in Hollywood as if their success is inherently “good for women” or an illustration of the system working in a more egalitarian way. Some of the worst men in Hollywood are women. It’s an ugly truth, and one that’s difficult to discuss in the nuanced way it deserves, but women are often better foot soldiers of the patriarchy than men. Particularly women who have held positions of power for a while. Understandable: they, too, are the product of structural forces. That may explain, but it doesn’t excuse. And a number of them wield their gender as a protective shield against criticism.

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Meanwhile, her outwardly impressive but privately difficult and unstable mother is a constant source of stress. At some point, something has to give. The question is, is success worth all the compromises? And at what point do you become complicit in a system you recognise is problematic? But despite her worldliness, she finds a world even more rotten at the core than she’d expected, one where male studio executives can do what they want, when they want, and the women are expected to be grateful. Deliciously sharp, ridiculously funny, and surprisingly heartfelt . . . I cannot wait to discuss it with everyone I know Coco Mellors, author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein Nora Ephron was the patron saint of militarized vulnerability. She refused shame. Take, for example, her Esquire essay about having small breasts. Society said: hate your body, but don’t talk about it. Nora said: you don’t get to have it both ways. Not Safe for Work follows an assistant in a major Hollywood TV studio in the early 2010s, described as "an ambitious young woman striving to get ahead in a world where a glossy veneer of glamour masks a deeply toxic underbelly".

When rumours of an assault start to circle the office, and your close friend confesses her own disturbing experience, you know there is plenty to gain from staying silent. The ability to bend an inch at a time while seeming to stand up straight is a useful and gendered skill. Most women I know do it regularly. They bend until they’re pretzeled and then blame themselves for the body aches. I’ve thought a lot about these dynamics. I wrote a whole book exploring them. And yet. There I was.Glittering. A funny, spiky, compulsive story about toxic workplaces, lean-in culture and #MeToo' EVENING STANDARD Blisteringly sharp, hypersmart, and compulsively readable―meet Isabel Kaplan’s searing debut novel about a young woman trying to succeed in Hollywood without selling her soul. A frank account of the inherent filthiness of leaning in. A study of the psychological, and at times literal, gymnastics that are required of striving women. Raven Leilaini Raven Leilani, author of Luster (Picador), dubbed it “a frank account of the inherent filthiness of leaning in… a study of the psychological, and at times literal, gymnastics that are required of striving women”.

In a simple sense, NSFW comments on how insidious rape culture is and how it’s particularly perpetuated in the workplace, both consciously and unconsciously, by both men and women. The novel places a focus on the complicity of both men and women – but more interestingly, the complicity of women. It’s kind of expected that men will never say anything because they’re ‘protecting their own’ or don’t see it as a problem that affects them – so then is the women’s responsibility to do something because ‘women support women?’ What role do women play in this corrupt system when they turn a blind eye to accusations against their male family members or friends, when they shrug it off because ‘he’s never done anything to me’. But then again, how can women be tasked with fixing a broken, patriarchal system that they didn’t create in the first place? Shouldn’t men be the ones who step forward and use their position to create change?

My own novel is currently on submission for screen adaptation. If I am fortunate enough that people are interested in adapting it, I may be faced with a dilemma: what if someone I know to be part of the problem, someone who I encountered in my previous job or have heard about through the whisper network, wants to buy it? Will I be principled enough to say no? Will I try to convince myself that if they are interested in supporting a critique of Hollywood, the ends will justify the means? Do I actually care enough about these systemic issues or am I also, in a way, exploiting them as literary material for my own professional gain? How can I separate my desire to raise awareness and increase discussion about complicity in Hollywood from my desire to be one of the voices in the conversation? Does it count for anything that I am asking myself these questions or no, not really? I have more questions than answers. I’m not sure if asking them out loud is useful, but it’s a start, and it feels more productive than silence. I remember being 23, anxiously navigating halls where executives didn’t look me in the eye, holding the muted phone to my ear, thinking: if I have the opportunity to speak, I hope I make the most of it. I’m trying my best.