A high-flying bachelorette in NYC with a difference

All Grown Up’s anti-heroine Andrea Bern is your common-or-garden bachelorette. And yet positively bristles with energy and newness

Jami Attenberg: creating a tangle of characters with flesh on their bones

Fiction: All Grown Up, By Jami Attenberg, Serpent’s Tail, €14.95

If you’ve even cast a cursory glance at pop culture in recent times, you’ll no doubt be aware of a new female trope: the single, child-free, high-functioning trainwreck.

Mainly because she can, she likes to party hard, meet random (often ill-suited paramours) and despair about her place in the world. Factor in the gloss of New York City, and her existential despair takes ...