*A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026 * GLAMOUR, BEST BOOKS FOR BOOKCLUBS 2026 * BUSTLE, 10 BEST NEW BOOKS OF MARCH * A GOODREADS EDITORS MARCH PICK * AN APRIL INDIE NEXT PICK*
From the acclaimed author of How to Be Eaten, a fresh take on the campus novel that follows an adjunct professor gigging her way through academia’s poor job market when she crosses paths with her old PhD adviser whose new novel might be about her.
Meet Sam, an adjunct professor at a public university in Baltimore who takes a last-minute gig at the private liberal arts college down the road. Overworked and underpaid, her life is a blur of back-to-back classes, side hustles, and job applications as she attempts to claw her way toward a full-time position. But her already precarious existence is thrown into disarray when she runs into her former grad school adviser, Dr. Tom Sternberg, on campus.
Tom and Sam have a complicated history, the lasting impact of which has haunted her academic career, and it’s the last thing she wants to think about as she navigates academic politics, institutional hurdles, and romantic entanglements with men and women that further complicate a sexuality not even she can define. Then she learns that Tom left his old job for undisclosed reasons—and his long-awaited second novel is about a professor’s reckoning with his checkered past. As whispers spread that Sam is the inspiration behind a central character, she fights to regain control of the story while questioning everything she thought she knew about her future—and herself.
With biting humor and a keen eye for detail, Maria Adelmann offers a fresh twist on a tangled #MeToo story and turns Sam’s downward spiral into a searing critique of class and the hollow promises of the American dream. A hilarious yet sobering look at how hustle culture has come to define modern academia, The Adjunct asks: Who really controls the narratives of success, identity, and power?
From the acclaimed author of How to Be Eaten, a fresh take on the campus novel that follows an adjunct professor gigging her way through academia’s poor job market when she crosses paths with her old PhD adviser whose new novel might be about her.
Meet Sam, an adjunct professor at a public university in Baltimore who takes a last-minute gig at the private liberal arts college down the road. Overworked and underpaid, her life is a blur of back-to-back classes, side hustles, and job applications as she attempts to claw her way toward a full-time position. But her already precarious existence is thrown into disarray when she runs into her former grad school adviser, Dr. Tom Sternberg, on campus.
Tom and Sam have a complicated history, the lasting impact of which has haunted her academic career, and it’s the last thing she wants to think about as she navigates academic politics, institutional hurdles, and romantic entanglements with men and women that further complicate a sexuality not even she can define. Then she learns that Tom left his old job for undisclosed reasons—and his long-awaited second novel is about a professor’s reckoning with his checkered past. As whispers spread that Sam is the inspiration behind a central character, she fights to regain control of the story while questioning everything she thought she knew about her future—and herself.
With biting humor and a keen eye for detail, Maria Adelmann offers a fresh twist on a tangled #MeToo story and turns Sam’s downward spiral into a searing critique of class and the hollow promises of the American dream. A hilarious yet sobering look at how hustle culture has come to define modern academia, The Adjunct asks: Who really controls the narratives of success, identity, and power?
REVIEWS
"...a unicorn, a truly thought-provoking look at power and misconduct — with a case so knotty, even the people involved are still untangling it — told from a POV rarely included in books set among quads and ivy-covered libraries.” --Bustle, 10 Best Books of March (Sophie Fishman)
"This novel is a tense yet witty exploration of the ups and (mostly) downs of adjunct life at the most elite colleges; it will open up discussions about labor rights, institutional stratification, and academia on the whole. . . . Adelmann provides impeccably written prose." --Glamour, "Best Books for Book Clubs in 2026" (Eshani Surya)
"Maria Adelmann takes the campus novel to new, jittery, and visceral places with The Adjunct. This darkly comic novel is anxiety-provoking in the best of ways as it explodes the seamy guts of the academy, unravels the fabric of MeToo, and bursts the mystique of authorial intent. Adelmann's titular adjunct, Sam, feels so real that I bit my cheeks to shreds as her life implodes over and over until the jaw-dropping end. Beyond the visceral reading experience, I have to applaud the novel's craft, the cochlear structure that whirls in upon itself, only to finish in an open space. I loved the literary doubling, the mille-feuille of textual references, and the constant, inescapable thrum of late-stage capitalism." --Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger
“A good writer might have a stance on some of the important issues of their time; a great writer will push the conversation further, as Maria Adelmann has done with The Adjunct. It’s an outrageous, smart novel about the rat race of academia, the MeToo movement, and debt from a writer whose masterful sleight of hand is saying the quiet parts loud, who is not afraid to sit in the uncomfortable gray space—and to paint it with even more hues. Conversational yet piercing, this is a powerful portrait of a woman in dire circumstances. This book has bite and one of the most damning endings I’ve ever read. I’m obsessed.” --Katie Yee, author of Maggie; or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar
"Disarmingly deft, surprisingly suspenseful, and full of delicious rage and language play. I have been waiting a long time for this satisfying novel about the crumbling of academia and the truth-warping storm of labor exploitation and intellectual grifting it leaves behind. A stay-up-all-night page-turner and a burning indictment of the creative class’s addictions and fantasies. I inhaled this book." --Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of Housemates
"A darkly funny, deeply incisive exploration of academia’s underbelly. Through Sam’s eyes, [Adelmann] exposes the absurd hierarchies and quiet humiliations of academic life with biting wit and emotional precision. Both a campus novel and a social reckoning, The Adjunct holds up an unflinching mirror to the systems that exploit passion in the name of prestige." --Booklist (Emily Park)
"This exposé of academia from the perspective of its most vulnerable residents offers a vital message at a time when it’s easy to forget what’s supposed to be at the center of all institutions: people—messy, unpredictable, and filled with fragile hope. A crucial new take on the time-honored tradition of the Campus Novel." --Kirkus Reviews
"A slashing tale of academia’s exploitative gig economy and the aftermath of the #MeToo movement . . . Adelmann takes an unsparing and witty view of academia’s ‘pyramid scheme’ . . . This clever campus novel mischievously inverts John Williams’s Stoner.” --Publishers Weekly
"The status inequities and power dynamics in academia are put on full display in a bleak but satirical way, spotlighting how academia exploits adjunct labor and the seemingly impossible game of catch-up that tenure-track hopefuls are forced to play. Adelmann prompts exploration about who has the power or right to control a public narrative that is eerily apt in the current social climate." --Library Journal
"Adelmann’s frank, sometimes darkly funny novel is a revealing depiction of the professional and personal challenges facing a young adjunct English professor." --Shelf Awareness (Harvey Freedenberg)
"Juicy! Dark!" --Goodreads Editors March Picks
"...a unicorn, a truly thought-provoking look at power and misconduct — with a case so knotty, even the people involved are still untangling it — told from a POV rarely included in books set among quads and ivy-covered libraries.” --Bustle, 10 Best Books of March (Sophie Fishman)
"This novel is a tense yet witty exploration of the ups and (mostly) downs of adjunct life at the most elite colleges; it will open up discussions about labor rights, institutional stratification, and academia on the whole. . . . Adelmann provides impeccably written prose." --Glamour, "Best Books for Book Clubs in 2026" (Eshani Surya)
"Maria Adelmann takes the campus novel to new, jittery, and visceral places with The Adjunct. This darkly comic novel is anxiety-provoking in the best of ways as it explodes the seamy guts of the academy, unravels the fabric of MeToo, and bursts the mystique of authorial intent. Adelmann's titular adjunct, Sam, feels so real that I bit my cheeks to shreds as her life implodes over and over until the jaw-dropping end. Beyond the visceral reading experience, I have to applaud the novel's craft, the cochlear structure that whirls in upon itself, only to finish in an open space. I loved the literary doubling, the mille-feuille of textual references, and the constant, inescapable thrum of late-stage capitalism." --Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger
“A good writer might have a stance on some of the important issues of their time; a great writer will push the conversation further, as Maria Adelmann has done with The Adjunct. It’s an outrageous, smart novel about the rat race of academia, the MeToo movement, and debt from a writer whose masterful sleight of hand is saying the quiet parts loud, who is not afraid to sit in the uncomfortable gray space—and to paint it with even more hues. Conversational yet piercing, this is a powerful portrait of a woman in dire circumstances. This book has bite and one of the most damning endings I’ve ever read. I’m obsessed.” --Katie Yee, author of Maggie; or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar
"Disarmingly deft, surprisingly suspenseful, and full of delicious rage and language play. I have been waiting a long time for this satisfying novel about the crumbling of academia and the truth-warping storm of labor exploitation and intellectual grifting it leaves behind. A stay-up-all-night page-turner and a burning indictment of the creative class’s addictions and fantasies. I inhaled this book." --Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of Housemates
"A darkly funny, deeply incisive exploration of academia’s underbelly. Through Sam’s eyes, [Adelmann] exposes the absurd hierarchies and quiet humiliations of academic life with biting wit and emotional precision. Both a campus novel and a social reckoning, The Adjunct holds up an unflinching mirror to the systems that exploit passion in the name of prestige." --Booklist (Emily Park)
"This exposé of academia from the perspective of its most vulnerable residents offers a vital message at a time when it’s easy to forget what’s supposed to be at the center of all institutions: people—messy, unpredictable, and filled with fragile hope. A crucial new take on the time-honored tradition of the Campus Novel." --Kirkus Reviews
"A slashing tale of academia’s exploitative gig economy and the aftermath of the #MeToo movement . . . Adelmann takes an unsparing and witty view of academia’s ‘pyramid scheme’ . . . This clever campus novel mischievously inverts John Williams’s Stoner.” --Publishers Weekly
"The status inequities and power dynamics in academia are put on full display in a bleak but satirical way, spotlighting how academia exploits adjunct labor and the seemingly impossible game of catch-up that tenure-track hopefuls are forced to play. Adelmann prompts exploration about who has the power or right to control a public narrative that is eerily apt in the current social climate." --Library Journal
"Adelmann’s frank, sometimes darkly funny novel is a revealing depiction of the professional and personal challenges facing a young adjunct English professor." --Shelf Awareness (Harvey Freedenberg)
"Juicy! Dark!" --Goodreads Editors March Picks
Also by Maria Adelmann
HOW TO BE EATEN: A NOVEL
*NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR * BELLETRIST'S JUNE BOOKCLUB PICK * A MUST-READ BOOK OF MAY BY TIME MAGAZINE, BUSTLE, AND GLAMOUR * AN "IT-GIRL" BOOK BY VOGUE
A "darkly funny, thought-provoking” (TIME Magazine) “wild feminist” (Washington Post) novel that reimagines classic fairy tale characters as modern women in a support group for trauma.
*NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR * BELLETRIST'S JUNE BOOKCLUB PICK * A MUST-READ BOOK OF MAY BY TIME MAGAZINE, BUSTLE, AND GLAMOUR * AN "IT-GIRL" BOOK BY VOGUE
A "darkly funny, thought-provoking” (TIME Magazine) “wild feminist” (Washington Post) novel that reimagines classic fairy tale characters as modern women in a support group for trauma.
GIRLS OF A CERTAIN AGE: STORIES
"A startling" (Jung Yun). "dark and tender" (Booklist) debut story collection exploring the many impossible choices that accompany 21st century femaleness.
"A startling" (Jung Yun). "dark and tender" (Booklist) debut story collection exploring the many impossible choices that accompany 21st century femaleness.
