Stephanie Danler attended Kenyon College and received her MFA in Fiction from The New School. Upon arriving in New York she reluctantly turned down an entry level job at a publishing house (upon learning the salary was incommensurate with paying rent) and found work as a back-waiter in Union Square Cafe. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
‘Outrageously good, with some of the most exquisite food-writing
I’ve come across.’
*Irish Independent*
‘A must-read’
*Irish Times*
‘A raw, shucked, pungent, wild love story.’
*Marie Claire*
'A stunning debut novel, one that seems destined to help define a
generation.’
*Jay McInerney*
‘Danler’s writing is lush, ambitious and precise, and it’s
impossible not to be impressed and taken in by her story’s grip on
the heartbeat of youth and anxiety in a fast-moving city…At times
manic, at times heartbreaking, it’s a sure-fire holiday read’.
*Irish Independent*
‘When provincial 22-year-old Tess arrives in New York to become a
waitress at a high-end restaurant, she’s struck by a new appetite
for life, and love, for the first time’.
*Grazia*
'A fantastic read - think Girls meets Kitchen
Confidential'.
*Stylist*
‘An intoxicating smorgasbord of culinary exploration. [Danler’s]
vivid description will have your mouth watering…a whip-smart,
charming and wry coming-of-age story. In a literary world
increasingly populated with gritty anti-heroines, Sweetbitter is a
welcome breath of fresh air’.
*Sunday Herald*
‘Playful and questing, it’s an adrenalised love song to the
openness of the city and its privileged enclaves; to the torrid
connections and giddy independence it inspires; and to the
intensity of the seasons that broil and then bite’.
*Mail on Sunday*
‘This clever debut is all about illusions…Danler’s intense,
psychedelic style makes you feel slightly drunk, and you won’t view
eating out in the same way again’.
*Daily Mail*
‘The vervy sassiness ultimately avoids emulation or hipster
desperation.. Tess develop into something greater than the
collection of snappy one-liners and smart observations some of her
male predecessors turned out to be. This is a deep-thinking,
feeling woman, as vulnerable as she is tenacious. Her
coke-enhanced sexual exploits…are often oddly moving, beautifully
written little confessions… As her self-awareness grows, it’s
increasingly difficult to resist her charms.’
*Big Issue*
'A smart meld of sexy subjects within a classic come-of-age
framework, written in a particular kind of intense,
self-consciously semi-poetic prose….its straight-faced commitment
to the sensual high notes – from sea urchins to sexual obsession –
will assure plenty of attention.'
*BookOxygen*
‘Impressively polished, the rare much-hyped book that lives up to
its billing: endearing yet unsentimental, smart and fun, a
bildungsroman mercifully free of cliché. Lyrical, insightful, and
funny…a total immersion in what it’s like to be young and hungry.
The reader is sure to gasp along with each new discovery until she
has finished and is left wanting more.’
*Eugenia Williamson, Boston Globe*
‘A killer novel…a worthy addition to the rich literary tradition of
writing about coming of age in New York City and, like the best of
these novels, it captures the spirit of a generation in the
process.’
*Mallory Rice, S-W-E-E-T*
‘This book will be a hit… one bite and you will devour
it.’
*Sarah Jampel, Food 52*
'Reading Sweetbitter is an exercise in the senses, every
word a delicious bit of visceral chew.’
*Jenny Bahn, sixtyhotels.com*
‘Food and feeling are natural partners; this debut novel…is a feast
of both. Like her sexual awakening, Tess’s culinary enlightenment
is vivid and exquisite.’
*Annalisa Quinn, npr.org*
'Danler’s food writing is outrageously good. Danler’s writing about
everything, in fact, is outrageously good. [Sweetbitter] is a
literary jewel, a beautiful display of crisp, evocative writing
that will have anyone who loves words and language salivating…I
have a feeling Sweetbitter may turn out to be a
delectable appetizer in a long, fruitful writing career.’
*Catherine Mallette, Star-Telegram*
‘Perfectly captures the raw possibility of a young woman’s first
year in New York, opening up to a whole new world of wine, food,
love and heartbreak.’
*Mackenzie Dawson, New York Post*
‘An unpretentious, truth-dealing novel… about hunger of every
variety. Ms. Danler is a sensitive observer… and gifted commenter
on many things. Sweetbitter is going to make a lot of
people hungry.’
*Dwight Garner, New York Times*
‘An outstanding job...brilliantly written...so engrossing to read,
I missed a flight even though I had already checked in and was
waiting at the gate. [Danler is an] excellent
writer. Sweetbitter is the Kitchen
Confidential of our time.’
*Gabrielle Hamilton, New York Times Book Review*
‘Stephanie Danler’s prose – like the New York life her young
heroine longs for – intoxicates the senses. A charming, harrowing
debut.’
*Jonathan Dee, author of The Privileges and A Thousand Pardons*
‘Sweetbitter is the most delicious fine dining: oysters so
perfect they make you moan, impossibly expensive champagne, truffle
shavings like snowflakes. This story of food and lust and youth and
the negotiations of intimacy is so breathless, so intense, so
utterly absorbing, I’m still nursing my emotional hangover. Step
aside Catcher in the Rye, Sex and the City, and Woody Allen. We
have a new New York City – the most dazzling one yet. Stephanie
Danler’s debut is extraordinary.’
*Diana Spechler, author of Who By Fire and Skinny*
'Incandescent, with visceral and gorgeous descriptions of flavors,
pitch-perfect overheard dialogue, deep knowledge of food, wine, and
the restaurant business…Danler aims to mesmerize, to seduce, to
fill you with sensual cravings. She also offers the rare
impassioned defense of Britney Spears. As they say at the
restaurant: pick up!’
*Kirkus (starred review)*
‘Stephanie Danler has written an excellent coming-of-age novel
built around the down-and-dirty adventure of meeting the public in
a service job. A mix of humor, realism, and occasional ghastliness,
this well-told tale will keep you helplessly binge-reading to find
out what happens next to its endangered heroine. An
accomplishment!’
*Atticus Lish, author of Preparation For the Next Life*
‘Sweetbitter... dresses the bones of a classic coming-of-age
story with the lusty flesh and blood of a bawdy early
twenty-first-century picaresque... Danler... quickly draws you into
the sparkling surfaces and the shadowy underbelly of the city...
[Tess's] insatiable hunger for tactile, sensual satisfaction dares
you to tag along. The journey is high-minded and dirty, beastly and
bountiful.’
*Elle*
‘Rich in sensory descriptions, the kind of book that one doesn’t
just read but devours.’
*Time Out*
‘The prose in itself is a dopamine tease: when Danler describes the
brininess of a Kumamoto oyster chased with chocolate stout or the
lights over the bar in summer twilight, I wanted to get drunk and
slurp seafood with my friends.’
*The Paris Review*
'mmaculately true to its time and place. [Danler's] food writing is
lush and precise... and her confiding narrator, Tess, a raw,
knowing, and crisp companion.’
*Vulture*
‘Danler’s ravishing debut is like inhabiting the heady
after-midnight hours of a city drunk on its own charms…[her]
descriptions of food and drink go beyond mouth-watering, verging on
orgasmic…a first novel [that] tantalizes, seduces, satisfies.’
*Leigh Haber, O Magazine*
‘Tess’ sensual awakening to food: creamy, ash-dusted cheeses;
anchovies drenched in olive oil; dense, fleshy figs like “a
slap from another sun-soaked world” [is] the book’s true
romance – the heady first taste of self-discovery, bitter and
salty and sweet.’
*Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly*
‘Danler can be a brilliant observer of the city; she can make
dialogue snap; she is unafraid to give us a protagonist whose drive
can be monstrous.’
*Newsday*
‘Sweetbitter is the rare novel that transcends its hype... Come for
the Meyer-lemon-tart narrator, Tess; stay for author Danler’s lush
and precise writing about food, drugs, and dives.’
*New York Magazine*
‘Danler’s sexy, astute debut is really a love story about the
addictive pull of restaurant life… Anyone who’s ever tied on an
apron will think, “Finally, someone wrote a book about us.” And
nailed it.’
*People*
‘Danler exquisitely captures the world of restaurants in writing
that is equal parts dreamy and sharp-edged. A vibrant celebration
of taste, wine, pleasure, and New York City.’
*Food & Wine*
'Sweetbitter is urgent and heady, written with great attention to
both environment and inner life, detailing desire and intimacy and
the navigation of lust. The descriptions of life inside the
restaurant are every bit as exhilarating as the lush descriptions
of food throughout – heirloom tomatoes and Kumamoto oysters and
endless Sancerre.’
*Guernica*
‘Danler's novel paints a visceral, evocative portrait of what it's
like to move to New York in your early twenties. Her spot-on
descriptions of New York 10 years ago and Tess' evolution from naif
to world-weary server, all in just one year, elevate "Sweetbitter"
– the opposite of "Bittersweet" – above its chic-lit trappings into
an irresistible coming-of-age tale that can truly be savored.’
*Mae Anderson, Associated Press*
'The perfect coming of age read'.
*Marie Claire*
‘A book that'll stay glued to your hands as you race through
the pages in one sitting.’
*Elle*
‘I loved this novel so, so much. It's rare that a book conveys with
such unerring precision what it's like to be young... This
book belongs with all the great essential young-female-in-New York
classics.’
*Kate Christensen, author of the PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novel
The Great Man*
‘Gorgeous, sensual prose and a page-turning plot line that casts a
spell down to the very last sentence of the final page…tantalizing
in all the right ways’
*Refinery29*
'Danler writes about food with sensory gusto as Tess learns how to
distinguish the fine points of every wine, how to identify an
heirloom tomato or oyster, how to shave a truffle…Throughout,
Danler evokes Tess’s voice—intimate, confiding, wonderstruck,
depressed—with deft skill. This novel is a treat, sure to find a
big following.'
*Publishers Weekly*
'There's even a Dangerous Liaisons-type love triangle with the
beautiful, naïve young narrator at its apex... The writing is
mostly incandescent, with visceral and gorgeous descriptions of
flavors, pitch-perfect overheard dialogue, deep knowledge of food,
wine and the restaurant business... From her very first sentences…
Danler aims to mesmerize, to seduce, to fill you with sensual
cravings. She also offers the rare impassioned defense of Britney
Spears. As they say at the restaurant: pick up!’
*Kirkus, starred review*
‘captures what a crazed, high-octane world a top-flight restaurant
can be.’
*Daily Mail, 2020*
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