- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Published: 6/2/26
- IBSN: 9781636143088
- e-IBSN: 9781636143095
- Genre: Fiction
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What You Should Worry About
In this beautifully crafted and often hilarious debut novel, thirty-seven-year-old Layla Moody must navigate the coronavirus pandemic lockdown while finding family on her own terms.
Now available for preorder. All preorders will ship on or before June 2, 2026.
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Forthcoming: 6/2/26
What people are saying…
“What You Should Worry About is literary, feminist, sexual, brave, smart, and hilarious. Meryl Branch-McTiernan is a real voice of our city and time.”
—Jennifer Belle, author of Swanna in Love
“What You Should Worry About is a wildly engaging debut that captures the spirit of a generation with fearless raunchiness and observational wit reminiscent of Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint.”
—Maisy Card, author of These Ghosts Are Family
“Such a delight to pop into all the fun worlds of this novel, from Sundance parties to Hollywood to Fire Island. Beneath the breezy tone lies a heartfelt exploration of grief and the profound weight of creative and romantic disillusionment.”
—Ledia Xhoga, author of Misinterpretation
“Meryl Branch-McTiernan’s debut novel, What You Should Worry About, is equal parts hilarious and provocative as we encounter Hollywood and the COVID quarantine through the lens of Layla, while she navigates a ridiculous world during a ridiculous time. You’ll laugh and cringe and ultimately be moved by the raw and naked emotion playing out in this wicked, sexy, smart, and wildly entertaining novel.”
—Robert Lopez, author of All Back Full
Description
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, she 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, she 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.
- Subjects: Forthcoming, Literary Fiction, Women’s Studies
- Tags: Meryl Branch-McTiernan, What You Should Worry About
Book Details
Author
MERYL BRANCH-McTIERNAN is a novelist, essayist, and screenwriter. Her short fiction has appeared in the Brooklyn Rail and the Southampton Review. She cowrote and produced the comedy feature Katie’s Mom, which won the Audience Award for Fusion Features at the 2023 Dances with Films festival. She received her BS in television, radio, and film from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and her MFA in creative writing and literature from Stony Brook University. She lives on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. This is her first novel.