The Au Pair

A New York Times Novel Everyone Will Be Talking About and Novel Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer 'Is anything more dangerous than a fragile male ego?' New York Times 'Nerve-wrackingly fun' Vogue, Best Books of the Year So Far <p>Steven Hammer was once a literary star. Now, his career is floundering, his marriage to high-powered banker Lucy is crumbling, and the only bright spot in his life is Astrid, the Norwegian au pair who cares for their children – and reveres his neglected novels. But what begins as a secret infatuation soon spirals into a scandal that makes them both infamous.</p> <p>As a headline-grabbing trial captivates the world with a salacious story of sex, power, and betrayal, Steven must confront the wreckage he’s created – and the deeper insecurities that fuelled it. Is Astrid an innocent young woman caught up in a case beyond her control, or a calculating femme fatale? And how far will he go, driven by desperation and obsession, for her professed love?</p> <p>With propulsive momentum, sharp wit and sly, lucid prose, The Au Pair is a sleek literary thriller about failure, desire, and the unravelling of a man as he grapples with his fading relevance – when the lies others spin pale beside the fictions we tell ourselves.</p> <p> Perfect for fans of The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair and Fleishman is in Trouble </p> <p>* * * *</p> <p> Praise for The Au Pair: </p> <p>‘The Au Pair is Teddy Wayne at his immensely readable best. The plot ratchets up in the creepiest, most chilling way while deliciously skewering the Brooklyn literary set. It’s a book you’ll tear through, one that leaves you guessing until the last page’ Maria Semple, author of Go Gentle</p> <p>‘This compulsive thriller gleefully and skilfully skewers both stereotypical tropes and the contemporary publishing landscape’ Boston Globe</p> <p>‘The reigning king of taut literary novels ... Wayne knows how to write about men in a way that few modern writers are capable of pulling off ... this is one you won’t be able to put down’ Men's Journal</p> <p>‘You may think you know where it’s going, this novel about a disappointed writer, his frosty wife, and a comely young nanny. You may be in for a surprise. Propulsive but also insightful – and funny, in its merciless skewering of midlife, marriage, and more – The Au Pair cements Teddy Wayne’s status as a master of the wicked little literary thriller’ Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind </p> <p>‘A heart-pounding mystery that reads like a movie’ People </p> <p>‘An ingenious dissection of marriage, masculinity, and privilege, propelled by a gimlet-eyed wit... A sly, unsettling hybrid of social satire and domestic thriller’ Kirkus Reviews (starred review)</p> <p>‘[A] tightly constructed, endlessly exhilarating thriller’ Town & Country</p> <p>‘I could not put it down. I raced through it’ Jennifer Weiner</p> <p>‘Teddy Wayne has written a book about selling out that doesn’t—a guilty pleasure that earns its guilt. The Au Pair is a canny seduction wrapped in a page-turning thriller wrapped in an elegy for the literary novel: a threefold delight’ Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Homeland Elegies and The Radiance</p>