About the Book
A debut novel. A stylish satire set in pandemic New York City that pokes at capitalism, creativity, loneliness and love all against the background of a frantic modern moment.
Maya is a young freelancer helping to stage ultra-luxury apartments in Manhattan. She’s mastered having a great attitude despite being kind of a mess. She’s good at her job but what she really wants is to be an artist, even if, let’s admit it, her art is making puppets – not that there’s anything wrong with that.
When the Covid lockdown hits, Maya flees her crummy flat in Queens and stows away in a conveniently vacant, brand new super-high rise penthouse, the kind built for oligarchs and billionaires. From her gilded, if empty, perch she recovers from the events of the run up to quarantine: a string of humiliations at work, frustrations with her “ex-with benefits,” her fraught relationship with her sister, as well as several man-children with whom she’s either flirted or slept with on one or two occasions. One after another of these characters seek refuge at the penthouse with Maya, forcing her to finally stake out a territory to call her own. She emerges as the summer of social justice protests captivates the world. Maybe in the grand scheme of things she’s not so messed up after all. (Who are we kidding, of course she is.)
Advance Praise for The Stager
Twenty-six-year-old Maya works as a stager for a beautiful, slightly oblivious designer named Athena. In an opening worthy of the movie Bridesmaids, Maya leaves a mess in a showcase penthouse. “Soaps are my forte,” says Maya, but her heart’s not in the high-rise game. it’s late 2019 and then early 2020, and more and more conversations are revolving around a “big bad virus”; Maya decides there’s no harm in staying in [a] penthouse to ride out the Covid-19 quarantine. Before she manages to eat and drink all the supplies . . . others—including her unhappily married sister—have joined her in a somewhat madcap but totally interesting ménage à many . . . the joy of this novel lies in its back-and-forth between aspects of Maya’s life and all her penthouse mates. A snappy first-person voice, charming chaos, and plenty of Manhattan atmosphere make this debut a standout.
― Kirkus Reviews (starred)
Aquilone offers a comedic tale of the early days of Covid-19 in this hilarious debut about a struggling young woman who seizes a chance at the high life during lockdown. . . . Maya is a true New York heroine—witty, resourceful, and neurotic—and her observations and farcical adventures will keep the reader in stitches. For a novel of a plague year, it’s loads of fun.
― Publishers Weekly (starred)
About the Author
Matthew Aquilone really has worked as an apartment stager (as well as a window dresser, Christmas tree decorator, and men’s underwear showroom designer). He studied art at Vassar College and earned his master’s in fiction writing from NYU. His work has been seen in The Rumpus, Craft, The South Dakota Review, Theater for the New City and elsewhere. He has been a fellow at the Ucross Foundation, the Edward Albee Foundation, the Norman Mailer Center, the I-Park Foundation and the Woodstock Guild/Byrdcliffe Colony of the Arts. He lives in Brooklyn where he was born and raised. The Stager is his first novel.
Author’s website: www.matthewaquilone.com