Coworkers at a legendary but troubled New York City museum struggle with issues large and small
over the course of one extraordinary day in this whip-smart novel that is “satirical and
incisive...like nothing you’ve ready before” ( Town & Country ). When Diane Schwebe the
director of a major New York museum is awakened in the early morning by a text message from
the museum’s lawyer it is the start of a twenty-four-hour roller-coaster ride. Diane has
sacrificed many things in her life to help the fading institution stave off irrelevance and
financial ruin. In this battle she’s surrounded by her stalwart supporters: her enigmatic and
tireless personal assistant the museum’s trusty head of security and its general counsel—a
man whose ability to weasel his way out of a jam is matched only by his capacity to avoid
learning anything from the experience. Orbiting Diane is a motley assortment of museum
employees each on the precipice of collapse or revelation: among them a line cook staring down
a huge opportunity he’s not sure he wants a costume curator stuck in an inescapable rut and
the ambivalent curator of the museum’s film program whose first day on the job might very well
be his last. On this day of the museum’s annual gala every plate that Diane has kept
spinning will fall and by daybreak someone will be dead. Wise surprising and darkly funny
Friends of the Museum is a kaleidoscopic “marvel” (Mona Awad author of Bunny ) that surges
along to the unstoppable tick of the clock leaving you on the edge of your seat until the
final second.
