THE PAPER WASP
By Lauren Acampora
Grove Press, June 11, 2019
Abby Graven lives with her parents in a small town in the Midwest, but mostly she lives in dreams. Dreams of a familiar house on an unfamiliar hill, watching headlights cut through the snow from the edge of a high bridge, and initiations into strange, occult rituals. Dreams of Elise Van Dijk, her childhood best friend turned far away, grownup movie star—their only “contact” in the last ten years the tabloid photos Abby clips out of supermarket glossies and stores in a box under her bed. But when Elise returns to town for a class reunion and the two reconnect, Abby’s dreams turn (and maybe not for the first time) prophetic. Soon Abby finds herself surprising Elise at her Malibu home and getting hired on as her personal assistant, beginning a long upward spiral into gauzy Los Angeles desperation, a deepening obsession, and plans for a shocking demonstration of feverish, adversarial devotion.
Propelled by enchanting, mysterious, and unstoppable force, The Paper Wasp explores the perilous permeability between the worlds of premonitory dreams and reality. Slashing through the otherworldly darkness of A-list Hollywood and the treacherous intimacies of female friendship, Lauren Acampora’s novel is an ode to auteurship, artistic freedom, and fearsome, blinding drive.
About the Author
Lauren Acampora is the author of The Wonder Garden, which won the GLCA New Writers Award, and was named a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, an Indie Next selection, a New England Book Award finalist, and one of Amazon and NPR’s best books of the year.