The Award

The Award Synopsis

"Grips the reader and never lets go"--Boston Globe

"The Award begins as a wryly funny satire of thwarted literary ambition but quickly evolves into something darker and more disturbing. Matthew Pearl's addictive and propulsive novel has the twisted nightmare logic of a Patricia Highsmith thriller."--Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of Tracy Flick Can't Win and Mrs. Fletcher

From the author of The Dante Club comes the word-of-mouth sensation, a thrilling, twisty story about a young writer trying to make his way through a cutthroat literary scene with life-and-death stakes.

David Trent is an aspiring novelist hoping to make a name for himself in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a place where ambitious writers lurk around every corner.

He lives in an apartment above a Very Famous Author named Silas Hale, who, behind his celebrated image, is . . . haughty and disdainful, definitely not of the mentor variety. Until David wins a prestigious award for his new book.

Silas is at last interested . . . and jealous. But soon the administrator of the award comes to David with alarming news, which forces the writer into a set of desperate choices. Then fate intervenes--and nothing can ever go back to normal.

With the wit and psychological wisdom of Jean Hanff Korelitz's bestselling The Plot and Teddy Wayne's The Winner, The Award is a timely, razor-sharp, and unputdownable novel about secrets, ambition, human foibles, and the dangerous things we will do to get ahead.