It turns out that, no matter how much we might wish it were possible, we cannot fast forward to Wednesday, just wake up knowing many things about how these elections have gone. I have a suggestion for how to pass some of the time. And yes, it's a romance novel โ a relevant one.
Kate Stayman-London's third novel is set in a world she knows: Democratic campaigns. Stayman-London was the lead digital writer in Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, and this book, See You Next Tuesday, is a love letter to campaigns, to Democrats, and even to the disagreements between the progressive and establishment wings of the party. In her acknowledgements, she writes "Thank you to Michael Whitney for a truly amazing conversation about the 2016 and 2020 election cycles (which we should have had a long time ago), and for being able to laugh together about a primary that was, uh, not so funny at the time." Whitney was Bernie Sanders' digital fundraising manager. So, yeah.
Given that backstory, it's particularly interesting that the moral heart of this enemies-to-lovers romance is very clearly Anya Katz, who works on campaigns for progressive candidates she truly believes in, while her eventual happily ever after, Gabe Hunt, serves his ambition but compromises his values by working for establishment candidates. Of course, that happily ever after requires Gabe to be an extremely good guy at heart (it's a romance novel! none of this is a spoiler!), but the tension between them, which plays out over years of campaigns โ some in which they work together, some in which they are at odds, is not just a personality mismatch or competitiveness.
The core debates of so many Democratic primaries play out through Anya and Gabe's story โ and while they direct some familiar venom at each other, See You Next Tuesday insists on both characters' fundamental good intentions.
Honestly, a book about Democratic campaigns could be the exact wrong thing to read as you wait for yet another existential election. One thing that's wonderful about the experience of reading See You Next Tuesday is that Stayman-London has managed to convey a passion for progressive politics, a sense that winning elections really is important for the nation, without dragging readers through the trauma of the current political moment. Winning elections for really good Democrats matters in this book, but Stayman-London isn't making us grapple with looming fascism. The stakes are lower in the book than in the reality we're currently stuck in, but the debates over working for the candidate you believe in vs. working for the candidate you think will advance your career aren't just typical workplace maneuvering, either.
Of course the book wouldn't work if Stayman-London wasn't a really good writer. Luckily, Kate Stayman-London is, in fact, a really good writer. When I read her debut novel, One to Watch, at one point I laughed so hard โ like wheezing and gasping โ that my husband heard me in the next room and came to check on my well-being. See You Next Tuesday isn't quite that funny, but it's delightful throughout. Anya and Gabe are complex enough to be satisfying. Their enemies-to-lovers storyline is earned. They are surrounded by a strong supporting cast, including their best friends Simone and Kira, Anya's parents, and a long list of campaign staffers and candidates.
And it really is nice to spend a little while in a world where politics really does matter, but the end of U.S. democracy is not on the table.
(Minor disclosure: The world of online progressive politics circa 2016 and before isn't that big. I know Kate Stayman-London slightly and I like her. But all I had to do if I didn't like the book was just not write about it.)
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