The New Yorker: "The Pilot" by Joshua Ferris

I think we'll put this one on the best-of-the-year watch list. It's about Lawrence, a recovering alcoholic and aspiring TV writer who is working on a script for a pilot. His agent is obscure, and Lawrence's recent work is an underarm commercial that was shot in "tax-friendly Winston-Salem." Lawrence obsesses about an invitation he receives from Kate Lotvelt, an actress/producer/writer whom he's met, briefly. He worries about how he responded, he worries that she invited him by mistake, he...