A New York Times Notable Book Rereading her childhood diaries, Heidi Julavits hoped to find incontrovertible proof that she was always destined to be a writer.

One Autumn day in 1985, sixteen-year-old Mary Veal vanishes from her Massachusetts prep school. A few weeks later she reappears unharmed and with little memory

When the hall clock reads twenty minutes past four, the attic clock reads twenty-three minutes past four, the kitchen clock reads twenty-five minutes past four,

From the acclaimed novelist of The Folded Clock and founding editor of The Believer magazine comes a "sharp-eyed, sardonic, hilarious" novel (The New York Times

"Nickel and Dimed for the Amazon age," (Salon) the bitingly funny, eye-opening story of finding work in the automated and time-starved world of hourly low-wage