Under the Neon Sun

Unable to afford rent, Mia—a community college student—lives out of her car, cleaning houses of the well-to-do in the LA area to meet her shoestring budget. Then Covid hits, and everything changes.

For people living in houses and apartments, with stay-at-home jobs, the pandemic was inconvenient. For Mia—a student and housekeeper whose budget is so tight she lives in her car—the pandemic destroys the very source of her paltry income. Fortunately, gutsy and funny Mia is a determined survivor. After weeks of cutting her limited spending even further, missing meals along the way, her wealthy employers become desperate for her services again. This time, she’s determined not to let them take advantage of her as they have in the past. Her newfound confidence gives her new hope as she works to escape the shackles of poverty on her own terms. Sally Rooney meets Elizabeth Strout in this brilliant fiction debut.

Dr. Kate Gale is co-founder and managing editor of Red Hen Press, editor of the Los Angeles Review, and a teacher in the low residency MFA program at the University of Nebraska in poetry. She is author of seven books of poetry including The Goldilocks Zone (University of New Mexico Press) and Echo Light (Red Mountain), and, most recently, The Loneliest Girl (University of New Mexico Press). She is also the creator of six librettos including Rio de Sangre, a libretto for an opera with composer Don Davis, which had its world premiere at the Florentine Opera in Milwaukee. She lives in Los Angeles.