Serpent’s Tail snares Waldman's second novel, Help Wanted

Serpent’s Tail has snared Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman, the second novel by the author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P (Cornerstone).

Luke Brown, publishing director, acquired UK and commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Natasha Fairweather at RCW, and will publish the book in hardback and e-book on 21st March 2024.

The novel is set in a giant superstore and the synopsis says: "Under the red-eyed scrutiny of their self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty delivery trucks of mountains of merchandise, stock the shelves and stagger home (or to another poorly paid day job) before the customers arrive.

"When Big Will the store manager announces he’s leaving, everything changes. The eclectic team members now see a way to have their awful line manager promoted up and away from them, and to dream of a promotion of their own. Together they set an extravagant plan in motion."

Brown said: "Everyone I knew in publishing read Adelle Waldman’s debut when it came out a decade ago – a supersensitive portrayal of an egotistical young literary man of a type with which we’d all had experience. Her new novel has much of the same sensitivity, imagination and wit, but is brought to bear on more moving and urgent subject matter: the plight of workers under corporate exploitation and negligence. It’s warm, funny and heartbreaking: a major American novel that speaks very much to our situation too."

Waldman added: "I’m delighted that Serpent’s Tail is publishing this novel, although I’m less delighted that the novel feels applicable to the UK. The positions of many low-wage workers in the US is bleak, due to constant cost-cutting measures from above that makes shares of giant retailers rise as their workers are forced to make do with less, in some cases a lot less."