Meryl Branch-McTiernan, "What You Should Worry About" (Akashic Books, 2026)

Tune in to this interview with Meryl Branch-McTiernan about her new book What You Should Worry About (Akashic Books, 2026). It's January of 2020 and thirty-seven-year-old Layla Moody is trying to worm her way into a party at the Sundance Film Festival. When she’s not picking up other people’s abandoned drinks or skinny-dipping in the hot tub, she’s trying to gain access to someone who can jump-start her stymied career as a Hollywood television writer. After a run-in with one of her creative heroines, she lands an opportunity to get her show produced. The only catch is, she has to return to New York, which she’s been avoiding since her father’s death. But soon all is thwarted when COVID-19 shuts down the entertainment industry and any opportunity to propel her life forward. While quarantining alone in her parents’ apartment in Queens, Layla wrestles with the ghost of an ex-boyfriend who disappeared unexpectedly, the grief of processing the loss of her father, and the notion that she just might be the one responsible for her current state of solitude. Finally, in spite of warnings and stay-at-home orders, Layla throws caution to the wind and joins a share house on Fire Island where she spent summers in her twenties. By returning to the house and its eclectic denizens, she is reintroduced to the comfort and annoying tendencies of other people, and begins to grasp how to find family on her own terms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature