Adrienne Miller

A fiercely personal memoir about coming of age in the male-dominated literary world of the nineties, becoming the first female literary editor of Esquire, and Miller's personal and working relationship with David Foster Wallace A naive and idealistic twenty-two-year-old from the Midwest, Adrienne Miller got her lucky break when she was hired as an editorial assistant at GQ magazine in the mid-nineties. Even if its sensibilities were manifestly mid-century—the martinis, powerful male egos, and unquestioned authority of kings—GQ still seemed the red-hot center of the literary world. It was there that Miller began learning how to survive in a man’s world. Three years later, she forged her own path, becoming the first woman to take on the role of literary editor of Esquire, home to the male writers who had defined manhood itself— Hemingway, Mailer, and Carver. Up against this old world, she would soon discover that it wanted nothing to do with a “mere girl.”  But this was also a unique moment in history that saw the rise of a new literary movement, as exemplified by McSweeney’s and the work of David Foster Wallace. A decade older than Miller, the mercurial Wallace would become the defining voice of a generation and the fiction writer she would work with most. He was her closest friend, confidant—and antagonist. Their intellectual and artistic exchange grew into a highly charged professional and personal relationship between the most prominent male writer of the era and a young woman still finding her voice.  This memoir—a rich, dazzling story of power, ambition, and identity—ultimately asks the question “How does a young woman fit into this male culture and at what cost?” With great wit and deep intelligence, Miller presents an inspiring and moving portrayal of a young woman’s education in a land of men.

After a hundred years of watching humans make bad decisions, anyone would be sick of their job as peacekeeper. Reihan, a seaver created to deal with humans who lose control over their manifestation abilities, is no exception. Worse still, virtually all humans in the Travelling City can manifest. That is, shape reality according to their more or less well-formed and often poorly thought-out designs. That alone would be enough to keep her busy, but then there are people like Phillippe. Phillippe, who drenched himself in the city’s collective subconscious to strengthen his inborn powers. Even though he shouldn’t be, he seems fine, crowned as the new star escort in the Brothel of Transformative Curiosities. But Reihan has seen this story play out before. And Phillippe is far too charming, far too kind, and far too inconsolable for her to simply look away. The Travelling City is a dark fantasy mystery packed with romance and even more existential dread; set in a whimsical, bizarre and ever-changing world. Epic Indie review : "Wielding a psychedelic array of bizarre imagery and space-distorting magic, The Travelling City boasts a truly fantastical setting for readers to dive in to. In a world where humans can manifest new realities for themselves, Adrienne Miller tests the limits of how weird and unfamiliar she can make her debut world, and it’s in this uniqueness that the book finds its shine [...] the indie space is blessed to have another author trying new things."