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The Adjunct
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Overview
A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2026 * Glamour's Best Books for Book Clubs 2026 * Bustle's Best New Books of March From the acclaimed author of How to Be Eaten, a fresh take on the campus novel that follows an adjunct professor gigging her way through academia's poor job market when she crosses paths with her old PhD adviser, whose new novel might be about her--for readers of Worry, Vladimir, and Less. Sam, an adjunct professor at a public university in Baltimore, takes a last-minute gig at the private liberal arts college down the road. Overworked and underpaid, she lives in a blur of back-to-back classes, side hustles, and job applications for an ever-dwindling number of tenure-track positions. Her already precarious existence is thrown into disarray when she runs into her former grad school adviser, Dr. Tom Sternberg, on campus. Tom and Sam have a complicated history, and it's the last thing she wants to think about as she navigates academic politics, institutional hurdles, and romantic entanglements with men and women that further complicate a sexuality not even she can define. Then she learns that Tom left his old job for undisclosed reasons--and his long-awaited second novel is about a professor reckoning with his checkered past. As rumors spread that Sam is the inspiration behind a central character, she fights to regain control of the story. A hilarious yet sobering look at how hustle culture has come to define modern academia, The Adjunct offers a bold twist on a tangled MeToo story and turns Sam's downward spiral into a searing critique of class and the hollow promises of the American dream.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781668089972
- ISBN-10: 1668089971
- Publisher: Scribner Book Company
- Publish Date: March 2026
- Dimensions: 8.67 x 6.38 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.92 pounds
- Page Count: 352
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Maria Adelmann turns the campus novel on its head with The Adjunct, a blistering examination of the gig economy at work in higher education, where employees with advanced degrees are hired as part-time educators, often without benefits or academic support.
Though she has a doctorate, Sam is an adjunct professor at a public university, eking out a precarious living without health insurance or job security. When she takes a second job at a small liberal arts college in Baltimore, she runs into her former teacher Tom Sternberg, who was also her advisor and a factor in her decision to switch majors from Creative Writing to English Literature, a setback from which Sam feels she’s never quite recovered. Once a promising author whose debut novel was hailed as brilliant, Tom hasn’t produced anything in years, but he’s working on something—and rumor has it that his new novel is based on a relationship he had with a student, an alleged affair that led to his divorce and job loss. Sam is petrified that Tom’s novel may contain a distorted version of herself and their relationship. When the novel is finally published, Sam’s fears are fulfilled, and campus gossips speculate that she was the student. As Sam reflects, she realizes her failed career is the collateral damage of the events that inspired Tom’s fiction.
Despite her ongoing inner panic over the book, most of Sam’s energy is focused on rushing between the two campuses where she works, grading student papers, applying for full-time jobs, nursing a rotting tooth and managing two friendships that hover on the border of something more: one with Sophie, whose inherited wealth offers the safety net that Sam lacks, and one with Gabe, another adjunct whose support is undercut by their competition over jobs.
The Adjunct is a grim satire with a dark heart. Ultimately, Sam’s inability to be the main character of her own life is mirrored and amplified by the use and abuse dealt out by the gig economy of higher education as well as by Tom’s cavalier attitude toward her. As the novel progresses, she fights to assert herself, only to end up in even more dire circumstances. Sam’s final decision can be read as a bold act of freedom or a final capitulation to the soul-killing grind; it’s to Adelmann’s credit that she leaves it for the reader to decide.
Maria Adelmann turns the campus novel on its head with The Adjunct, a blistering examination of the gig economy at work in higher education, where employees with advanced degrees are hired as part-time educators, often without benefits or academic support.
Though she has a doctorate, Sam is an adjunct professor at a public university, eking out a precarious living without health insurance or job security. When she takes a second job at a small liberal arts college in Baltimore, she runs into her former teacher Tom Sternberg, who was also her advisor and a factor in her decision to switch majors from Creative Writing to English Literature, a setback from which Sam feels she’s never quite recovered. Once a promising author whose debut novel was hailed as brilliant, Tom hasn’t produced anything in years, but he’s working on something—and rumor has it that his new novel is based on a relationship he had with a student, an alleged affair that led to his divorce and job loss. Sam is petrified that Tom’s novel may contain a distorted version of herself and their relationship. When the novel is finally published, Sam’s fears are fulfilled, and campus gossips speculate that she was the student. As Sam reflects, she realizes her failed career is the collateral damage of the events that inspired Tom’s fiction.
Despite her ongoing inner panic over the book, most of Sam’s energy is focused on rushing between the two campuses where she works, grading student papers, applying for full-time jobs, nursing a rotting tooth and managing two friendships that hover on the border of something more: one with Sophie, whose inherited wealth offers the safety net that Sam lacks, and one with Gabe, another adjunct whose support is undercut by their competition over jobs.
The Adjunct is a grim satire with a dark heart. Ultimately, Sam’s inability to be the main character of her own life is mirrored and amplified by the use and abuse dealt out by the gig economy of higher education as well as by Tom’s cavalier attitude toward her. As the novel progresses, she fights to assert herself, only to end up in even more dire circumstances. Sam’s final decision can be read as a bold act of freedom or a final capitulation to the soul-killing grind; it’s to Adelmann’s credit that she leaves it for the reader to decide.