DOREE SHAFRIR READS FROM HER NOVEL STARTUP WITH JADE CHANG

Skylight Books Podcast Series

Startup (Little Brown and Company)

Doree Shafrir’s hilarious, smart debut Startup is set in the heart of New York City’s tech industry, where 36 is considered past your prime and a pole-dancing workshop is an acceptable Thursday evening activity with your co-workers. A veteran online journalist, Doree has written a hilarious and sharply observed novel about the difficulties of real-life connection in our hyper-connected world.

Startup assembles a cast of indelible characters: Mack, the it-boy visionary of the moment trying to take his app to the next level; Isabel, a social media hero working for him a bit too closely; Katya, an ambitious Russian emigre journalist desperate for a scoop; and Sabrina, an exhausted mother of two whose inattentive husband happens to be Katya's boss. When a scandal erupts in the lower Manhattan loft building where all four work, they quickly discover just how small a world the Big Apple's tech community can be.

A senior culture writer at BuzzFeed, Doree was inspired to write this novel by the follies and foibles of the startup world, and also in part by some of the scandals that plagued the tech industry in the last few years. Camille Perri, author of The Assistants, notes Startup “is chock-full of strong women transcending the workplace drama, sexual politics, and all-around dumb stuff the men in their life are doing. It’s a novel that just might spark the official feministing of startup culture.”

This debut, already praised by Rumaan Alam, Joanna Rakoff, and Nick Bilton, is a sharp, hugely entertaining story of youth, ambition, love, money and technology's inability to hack human nature.

Praise for Startup

“Is there a satirist alive more brilliant—and more insightful—than Doree Shafrir? That I tore through Startup in a single day—ignoring the cries of my children and the dinging of my phone, laughing with recognition at her characters’ foibles—is perhaps not nearly as significant as the fact that this ridiculously compelling novel has haunted me, every minute, in the weeks that followed. If you have ever lived in New York or worked in an office, you will love this novel. If you love the novels of Tom Perotta, you will love this novel. But also: If you are a sentient human, you will love this novel.”--Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year

"Don't buy this book. Don't open. Don't start reading it. Because if you do, I can assure you, you won't be able to put it down. I was hooked from the first page and found myself lost in a beautifully-written fiction that so succinctly echoes today's bizarre reality."— Nick Bilton, Special Correspondent, Vanity Fair and author of Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal

“This funny, empowering debut is chock-full of strong women transcending the workplace drama, sexual politics, and all-around dumb stuff the men in their life are doing. It’s a novel that just might spark the official feministing of startup culture. If I were a tech bro, I’d be shaking in my hoodie.”–Camille Perri, author of The Assistants

Doree Shafrir has also been on staff at Rolling Stone, the New York Observer, Gawker, and Philadelphia Weekly, and has contributed to publications including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Slate, The Awl, New York Magazine, Marie Claire, and Wired. She grew up outside of Boston, lived in New York for nine years, and now resides in Los Angeles with her husband Matt Mira, a comedy writer and podcaster.

Jade Chang has covered arts and culture as a journalist and editor. She is the recipient of a Sundance Fellowship for Arts Journalism, the AIGA/Winterhouse Award for Design Criticism, and the James D. Houston Memorial scholarship from the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. The Wangs VS. The World is her first book.