5 Questions with Camille Perri, author of ‘The Assistants’
Until recently, Camille Perri was Books Editor at Large for Cosmopolitan. Prior to that, she served as Assistant Editor and Books Consultant at Esquire. Earlier in her career, Perri was a ghostwriter of young adult novels, a fiction reader for The Paris Review, a reference librarian, and, of course, an assistant.
Her novel The Assistants follows Tina Fontana, a 30-year-old assistant to a media exec, and her fellow well-educated twenty and thirty-somethings struggling to rise above their lowly, demeaning, assistant-level jobs. Frustrated and motivated by income-inequality angst, these smart, underpaid young women take matters into their own hands with a clever embezzlement scheme calculated to get their piece of the pie.
- Your novel touches on a lot of very real anxieties about debt and work, but it is also a funny caper story. Do you think it’s easier to address these kinds of tough themes through humor?
I’m not sure if it’s easier to address tough themes through humor, but I do think it’s more fun and makes such themes easier to digest for the reader. I’ve always been a big fan of political and social satire. You can get away with making some extremely bold statements by Trojan Horsing them into a narrative via comedy.
2. Obviously, you don’t condone embezzlement as a way to manage financial troubles. Do you think there’s a way out of situations like the one Tina finds herself in? Or is it just a matter of getting lucky?
Of course there are honest ways to manage financial troubles. Hopefully, as student debt becomes more of a hotbed issue, this will be truer than ever in the coming years.
3. Most of the characters of The Assistants are female. Do you think Tina’s situation is particular to young women, or particularly difficult for young women?
I think Tina’s situation is as relevant to men as it is to women. That said, a majority of the assistants that I know are women, so I did want to speak to the female experience in particular. Are things more difficult for women? Probably yes, but I suppose that’s up for debate. They certainly earn less than men.
4. Have you brought any of your own past work experience to the novel?
I began this novel while I was working as the assistant to the Editor in Chief of Esquire magazine. One day while doing his expenses I remembered that my student loan payment was due. Not wanting to forget to make the payment, I immediately logged on to my account and when I saw those two windows open side-by-side on my computer, something clicked. It hit me how this debt that had been weighing me down for so many years was, in the larger scheme of things, particularly in the context of corporate money, relatively small. I thought: Hmm, if only I weren’t an honest person. And then I thought: But what a great idea for a novel.
5. Income inequality is growing wider and wider. Do you think young people might actually fight back as those before them have failed to do?
I sure hope so. But it can be extremely disillusioning to be a young person today and to have faith in even our most progressive politicians. That said, this is an election year and we must be engaged. We’re forfeiting our power if we succumb to apathy.
Bonus: What books have been rocking your world lately?
At the moment I’m reading three terrific galleys. You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott, Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman, and Live Fast Die Hot by Jenny Mollen.
