The Guest Lecture

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With "a voice as clear, sincere, and wry as any I've read in current American fiction" (Joshua Cohen), this poignant and original novel explores how to cultivate a brave mind in anxious times, following a newly jobless academic rehearsing a speech on John Maynard Keynes for an unexpected audience. In a hotel room at night, Abby, a young feminist economist, lies awake beside her husband and daughter, feeling unprepared for her upcoming talk on optimism and Keynes. To practice, she employs an ancient rhetorical technique, assigning parts of her speech to different rooms in her house, accompanied by an imaginary companion—Keynes himself. As she navigates her own consciousness, Abby strays from her planned remarks on economic history and utopia, grappling with her identity as a lapsed optimist. Struggling to support her family in a hostile America after being denied tenure, she confronts her future amidst global darkness. Undertaking a quest through her memories, she uncovers ideas from figures like Cicero and Queen Latifah, pondering what a better world might look like if stories were told with honesty and hope. With warm intellect and playful curiosity, the author transforms Abby's midnight crisis into a profound performance of self-discovery.