Adrienne
Miller

Adrienne Miller is a highly acclaimed editor and writer whose most recent book, IN THE LAND OF MEN (Ecco/HarperCollins), was named a best book of 2020 by The Wall Street Journal, Esquire, and Vogue. Her novel THE COAST OF AKRON (FSG), was named a book of the year by The Chicago Tribune and Amazon, among others. For nearly a decade, she served as the literary editor of Esquire -- the first woman to hold that position -- and won a National Magazine Award for Fiction. Her writing has also appeared in many publications, including Vogue, The Paris Review, GQ, Architectural Digest, and Esquire.

In The Land of Men: A Memoir

"Miller delivers a beautifully written, fiercely honest account of finding her way—and her voice—in a male-dominated industry."

- The Washington Post

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The Coast of Akron:
A Novel

"Adrienne Miller is one of the wittiest and most humane writers we have, bringing to mind at once Dorothy Parker, Mary McCarthy, and M.F.K. Fisher."

- Dave Eggers

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Books

Press

Praise for Adrienne Miller

"[A] literary junkie's dream come true. . . . In the Land of Men is both tender and painful. It’s power and mercy. If you love literature, novels, or anything that has to do with the written word, you will enjoy [this book.]” —Associated Press

A deeply personal memoir by former Esquire editor Adrienne Miller, In the Land of Men recounts her coming-of-age career in a male-dominated magazine world and the cost of breaking in.” —Parade

“In the Land of Men conjures the last-hurrah days of Manhattan maga- zine publishing . . . but it is full of contemporary resonance. With an easy intimacy and intellectual acuity, it’s an engrossing story of inno- cence and influence. . . . [It is also] an intense, claustrophobic portrait of a complex relationship. . . . You get the sense that, as she wrote it, Miller was still having arguments in her head with Wallace. But this is what gives the book its energy and its wisdom.” —New Statesman

“Miller delivers a beautifully written, fiercely honest account of finding her way—and her voice—in a male-dominated industry.” —Washington Post

“Deftly evokes the spirit of a particular world at a particular time . . . presenting ample evidence of the power structures—some obvious, some not so visible—that bound it and all its problems together. . . . The most enjoyable quality of the book is its relentless cataloging of Wallace’s inventively awful behavior, and of Miller’s efforts to withstand the on- slaught. That Wallace was not a great guy is no surprise, but a lot of the detail here is fresh.” —The New Republic

“Deftly brings to life the free-spending and freewheeling glossy maga- zine culture of the 1990s.” —New York Times Book Review

"With this deceptively complex memoir that operates by omission and transparency, the author dares us to find her any less interesting and worthy of contemplation than the vaunted literary genius she invites into her story."

— Katy Ball, An Amazon Best Book of February 2020

"A fascinating book about being the only woman in the room."

— The New York Post

"She makes magic on the page."

— Kitty Kelley, The Washington Independent Review of Books

"This cool, careful, enraged book about condescension has quiet humor, perfect pitch, and an unfashionable stoicism, especially for someone writing a memoir. When finally the fuse that’s been burning under her desk for nearly a decade of literary gate-keeping and risk-taking goes off, you don’t even feel as if Miller is raising her voice, only saying what she means, editing out, as was her profession, whatever doesn’t need to be there.”

— Greil Marcus, The Los Angeles Review of Books

“Miller had a splendid career, moving from editing fiction at GQ to becoming the literary editor at Esquire and enjoying a close friendship with David Foster Wallace before his death in 2008. Miller delivers a beautifully written, fiercely honest account of finding her way—and her voice—in a male-dominated industry.”
— The Washington Post

“[Miller] recounts her career as an ‘improbable gatekeeper’ and spins an elegy for the glory days of American magazines, with cameos by Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, and Dave Eggers. The star of the show, though, is David Foster Wallace…who quickly became her greatest confidant. So began a long-distance love affair that defied definition…What a treat to listen in.”

— Vogue

“The memoir I’ve been waiting for: a bold, incisive, and illuminating story of a woman whose devotion to language and literature comes at a hideous cost. It’s Joanna Rakoff’s My Salinger Year updated for the age of She Said: a literary New York now long past; an intimate, fiercely realist portrait of a mythic literary figure; and now, a tender reckoning with possession, power, and what Jia Tolentino called the ‘Important, Inappropriate Literary Man.’ A poised and superbly perceptive narration of the problems of working with men, and of loving them.”

— Eleanor Henderson, author of 10,000 Saints

“Adrienne Miller did not merely find herself in the midst of a bright, innovative, challenging, unforgettable moment in literary culture: she made it happen. It was easy to miss that then, given all the attention paid to the brilliant writers, mostly men, that she discovered, nurtured, and endured. But now, with ferocious humor and honesty she conjures once more that Narnia-like world of books before blogs, magazines before the internet—capturing all its giddy verve, and all its frank injustices with her own unmatchable taste and wit at the dead center, where it always belonged.”

— John Hodgman, author of Medallion Status

"In The Land of Men is about being the only woman in the room. But, beyond that, it’s about the magic of rooms themselves. It’s a revisiting of life before the age of ubiquitous screens, when we shared physical space—sometimes uncomfortably and sometimes ecstatically—with our heroes and our nemeses alike. I was thrilled to make the trip.”

— Meghan Daum, author of The Problem with Everything: My Journey Through The New Culture Wars

“Adrienne Miller’s voice is lucid and remorseful, and she’s brought us a beautiful, painful book, a tender dissection of elusive subjects up to and including the passage of time and youth itself.”

— Jonathan Lethem

“An incredible guide to a ridiculous era and its outrages. Many will praise Miller's ability to bring a time and place to life, but I would also like to add that this book is very, very funny.”

— Gary Shteyngart, author of Our Country Friends

“Funny and shrewd . . . Miller offers a keen and caustic take on the literary universe at a crossroads . . . Her musings on the ‘psychologically intimate’ work of an editor are enlightening; her passages recounting blatant and insidious sexism are bracing, and her disclosures about her relationship with Wallace are cathartic. Miller’s love for language and faith in the power of art deepen this finely composed, forthright, witty, and involving memoir of one woman’s triumph in the competitive literary cosmos.”

— Donna Seaman, Booklist

“Riveting . . . reckons with power, and the dark truth about who gets to have it.”

— Esquire

“An irresistible glimpse into the glory days of print magazines and the not-so-glorious behind-the-scenes moments.” —theSkimm

“The jury’s still out on whether or not one must ultimately choose be- tween the perfection of the life or the perfection of the life’s work. But, after taking an invigorating tour through Miller’s bookish world, it is clear that the verdict still matters.” —Arts Fuse

“[A] sharp blend of memoir and cultural/literary history . . . A good portion of her book centers on her difficult-to-define relationship with Wallace; her excerpts from phone conversations and voicemails and dates with him illustrate a personality that was undefinable yet brilliant. Miller exhibits a particular adroitness in her ability to re-create, with at times biting humor, various events and interactions in her career and relationships . . . A refreshingly relatable memoir from a gifted, intellectual writer.”

— Library Journal

“Intimate . . . intriguing . . . will appeal to book nerds and fans of David Foster Wallace.”

— Publishers Weekly

“Movingly recount[s] the sexism she endured . . . . Miller's experience as a woman at a male-dominated magazine is unique.”

— Kirkus Reviews

"Adrienne Miller is one of the wittiest and most humane writers we have, bringing to mind at once Dorothy Parker, Mary McCarthy, and M.F.K. Fisher."

—Dave Eggers

"Dare I say it--this book has got some real muscle to it. Miller goes to the core of a wonderfully eclectic American family. At the same time she manages to serve up a swinging London, to dissect the worlds of journalism and art, and to provoke the reader with, of all things, humor. Tender, intelligent, audacious, and packing a serious wallop, The Coast of Akron will be around a long, long time."

—Colum McCann, author of Dancer

"Adrienne Miller's enormous talent is evident on every page."

—Curtis Sittenfeld, The Washington Post

"The most exciting writer for women since Arundhati Roy stole our hearts with The God of Small Things."

—Cosmopolitan

“[The novel] overflows with zinging sentences, fresh imagery, unexpected turns of phrase, and more eccentricities than the loony-tunes family it chronicles …. Beneath the spun-sugar absurdity of The Coast of Akron is a terrifically compelling and original tale about art, gender, ownership, and identity …. [Miller] writes a mean sentence, deftly employs some searing imagery, and tackles everything from self-abnegation to artistic inspiration.”

—Rebecca Traister, Salon

When Miller lights her narrative fuse, her readers wait for the fireworks with heart-pounding giddiness …. Yet, oddly enough, it isn’t the zany plot that provides the most excitement. Instead, the pyrotechnics come from Miller’s enormous wit and linguistic creativity.”

—The New York Times Book Review

""What an incredible carnival of a novel! I can't do justice to the ingenuities of Adrienne Miller's book; it's amazing in a thousand and one different ways. Blazingly vivid, shocking, hilarious, moving, irresistibly absorbing from first page to last, with an unforgettable family at its center, The Coast of Akron is a triumph." —Joanna Scott

"The Coast of Akron is a novel of many delights: it's audacious and provocative, it's arousing (cf. pages 194-196, etc.) and it's hilarious. Adrienne Miller's sharply drawn characters are some very peculiar people, alternately repellant and attractive--people who are, in fact, just like you." —Ken Kalfus

“Miller’s handling of this crew is a joy, the characters revealing themselves through a clever and deftly synchronized plot and unflaggingly witty prose … [Miller] turns out to be an acute social critic and an accomplished psychologist, whose narrative skills carry us buoyantly from chapter to chapter.”

—The Boston Globe

“The Coast of Akron is a joy to read and decipher.”

—The Plain Dealer

“Splendidly realized characters ….. Miller is a gifted ventriloquist.”

—The Chicago Tribune

“As a farce, the book could not be more bizarre, or more dead-on target …. The novel this one most resembles is Don DeLillo’s classic White Noise. Like the Gladneys of DeLillo’s book, the family in this lively debut has a slaphappy giddiness that seems almost to come from something in the air.”

—The Independent (UK)

“How is The Coast of Akron unlike your typical debut? Let me count the ways. It’s campy, complicated, and almost unnervingly professional, as though Miller had been knocking out this stuff for years.”

—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Imaginative, refreshingly eccentric, and, at times, strangely moving, this is truly a book whose characters stay with you long after you put them back on the shelf—whether at page 70, after the first evening of reading, or at page 390, where The Coast of Akron reaches its memorable and poetic conclusion.”

—The Chicago Tribune

“Adrienne Miller has built a deliciously absurd tale around lies and those who live them.”

—The Denver Post

“The Coast of Akron examines celebrity, identity, and self-deception, while quietly lampooning the ludicrously self-referential nature of art history …. Miller’s dark, compelling, often laugh-out-loud funny debut would be an achievement even for a seasoned pro.”

—Nylon

“A debut novel that gives the heartland its fictional due. Her Akron is a place of flamboyant personalities, grand delusions, and poisonous ambition. Adrienne Miller … has created a big, brashly ambitious novel that does not deal in half-measures.”

—The Village Voice

“An ambitious comic novel ranging from punk-era London to present-day Ohio that balances irony about our capacity for self-delusion with compassion for our appetite for destruction.”

—Elle

“The Coast of Akron is a standout well worth exploring. Miller’s eclectic characters are flawed and deceitful, yet heartbreakingly human, while her writing is brutally honest, often hilarious, and endlessly haunting.”

—BookPage

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