Work Nights

**Longlisted for the Center for Fiction 2025 First Novel Prize**

A young queer woman finds herself in a love triangle with an unobtainable intern and a quick-tempered musician in this charming debut that combines Big Swiss with The Devil Wears Prada.

Jane Grabowski hauls herself to her nine to five office job at New York City’s most acclaimed newspaper to sit in stale air under severe florescent lights and mask her rage by sending emails with too many exclamation points.

Luckily, Jane has a reason to keep coming into the office: Madeline, the distractingly beautiful intern. Madeline has never dated a woman and is uncomfortable with labels but with carefully timed lunch breaks and painstakingly crafted texts, Jane works her way into her life. Meanwhile, Jane’s free-spirited artist roommate tries to keep her from falling for a straight girl by dragging Jane to gay bars and queer Shabbat dinners, where she meets the decidedly uncool and morally righteous musician, Addy.

Caught between Addy’s readiness to commit and Madeline’s alluring unpredictability, Jane is pulled down a slippery path of lies and deceit, leading to a plane ticket that threatens to take everything down in one fell swoop.

About the Author :
Erica Peplin is a writer from Detroit, Michigan, now based in Brooklyn. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Joyland, The Millions, McSweeney’s, The Village Voice, and more. From 2015 to 2016, she worked in the advertising department of The New York Times. Since then, she’s worked as a shipping clerk, a high school custodian, and a restaurant server. Find out more at EricaPeplin.com. 

Review :
"Work Nights is wry and tender, a lethal combo that could only come from a writer with a poet's eye and a wicked sense of humor. Pepin's debut is grounded in the ordinary--office doldrum, love triangle dramatics, youthful chaos--but her talent and prose make it sparkle, elevate this novel to otherworldly heights. A voice I'd follow into the abyss." —Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of PIZZA GIRL  “I read this book in one sitting, shut it, and immediately said to myself 'yeah, this one will ruin the bisexuals.' WORK NIGHTS takes us on an unapologetic romp through all the worst and best places in New York City, makes gay people sit at desks under fluorescent lighting, and points us toward all the right decisions people can make and has them turn left. This novel is like accidentally taking too much adderall, going on a first date, and then trying to recount it to your lesbian best friend the next day but seeing it all as if you were looking through a gay fish-eye lens. Unpleasant, exhilarating and i’d earnestly do it all again — even though Jane would never call me back.”— Haley Jakobson, author of OLD ENOUGH "Addicting, horny, and stylish as hell. I tore through this book as easily as Jane Grabowski tears through straight women's hearts." —Myriam Lacroix, author of HOW IT WORKS OUT "Hilarious, astute, and slyly wise, Peplin's brilliant debut captures perfectly the malaise of corporate life and the lonely search for meaning outside its confines. Work Nights is for anyone who has ever worked in an office; for anyone who has ever lusted after a disinterested femme; for anyone who hates clubbing. I couldn't put it down." —Madison Newbound, author of MISRECOGNITION “Reading Erica Peplin’s sharp debut, I developed an ill-advised crush on Jane Grabowski, who has aversions both to monogamy and washing her hair but is so charming I willingly accompanied her to Midtown, Manhattan for hundreds of pages. I inhaled this book.” —Anna Dorn, author of PERFUME & PAIN "Reading Work Nights, I had the strange feeling that my life was a falafel wrap and the book was a lemon tahini sauce, and no matter how much I poured on, I would always want more. In smooth tangy sentences, Peplin asks the exact questions my friends stay up late discussing. How should we measure our days? What do we do when something—a job, a relationship, an apartment—is just bad enough to want to leave, and just good enough to want to stay? A story to gobble up quickly and think about for ages. I’m a fan." —Fiona Warnick, author of THE SKUNKS “Erica Peplin’s debut novel, Work Nights, charmingly entangles the monotonous nature of corporate life with an all-cosnuming work crush.”  —Go Magazine “A lowly media planner pursues friendship and love while trying to stay afloat at her magazine job in Peplin’s witty and emotionally raw debut… Devotees of The Devil Wears Prada will find much to love.” —Publishers Weekly  “There’s not just depth, but true yearning in Work Nights, not to mention Peplin’s knack for character, incisive wit and narrative economy… Work Nights is set apart by the power of Peplin’s voice. Through Jane’s eyes, we see a world of 21st-century generational struggles— wealth inequality, the soul-draining effects of capitalism, the feeling that everything must be part of some hustle or another—filtered through humor and genuine heart… A singular effort by a bright new voice in fiction.” —Booklist