Hilary Leichter: Brooklyn's Architect of the Absurd

Hilary Leichter Photo Credit: The Believer

A note from our founder

Our fourth tribute in this new chapter goes to a writer who turns the absurdities of modern life into something both funny and quietly devastating. Hilary Leichter built her reputation on the strange logic of the gig economy and a terrace that shouldn't exist — and she teaches the next generation of writers right here in the city she calls home.

From New Jersey to Columbia

Hilary Leichter was raised in New Jersey and earned her MFA from Columbia University in 2012, laying the groundwork for a career defined by inventive surrealism, absurdism, and magical realism aimed squarely at critiquing modern life.

Temporary and the Gig Economy

Leichter arrived with real force in 2020 with her debut novel, Temporary, a sharp, surreal satire of the gig economy that follows a protagonist cycling through increasingly bizarre placements, from an assassin's assistant to a pirate ship deckhand. The book was a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Prize.

Terrace Story

Her second novel, Terrace Story, published in 2023, expanded on her National Magazine Award-winning short story of the same name to explore grief, space, and family through a hidden terrace that magically appears in a cramped apartment — a premise as strange and resonant as her debut.

A Brooklyn Life in Letters

Leichter has been honored with a Whiting Award in Fiction, and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Harper's Magazine. She currently serves as an Assistant Professor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Creative Writing at Columbia University, and she lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Bibliography

Novels

• Temporary (2020) — An absurdist fable about a nameless young woman navigating a world of endless, bizarre temporary jobs — including filling in for a barnacle, a pirate, and the Chairman of the Board — in a quest for permanence under late capitalism.

• Terrace Story (2023) — A beautifully layered, magical-realist novel tracing the seismic repercussions that follow a young family after they discover a beautiful, expansive terrace hidden inside their cramped apartment's closet.

Selected Short Fiction & Contributions

• "Terrace Story" (2021) — Her original short story published in Harper's Magazine, which won the 2021 National Magazine Award in Fiction.

• Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Stories of Horror (2020) — Contributor to this anthology of flash-fiction horror edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto.

READ LEICHTER

Start with Temporary if you want the book that put her on the map, or Terrace Story if you'd rather begin with her quieter, more aching follow-up. Either way, you're reading a writer working out some of the strangest, truest metaphors in contemporary fiction — from a desk in Brooklyn. Get the book.

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