I’m Just Presenting a Clown

Cameron Engwall talks with Erica Peplin about “Work Nights,” her debut novel.

By Cameron EngwallAugust 5, 2025

• Fiction

WHEN I ARRIVE, Erica Peplin is already at the bar, chatting with the bartender during happy hour on a Monday. I order the house lager (“You’re a beer drinker?” she asks. “No, not really”), recalling that Jane, the protagonist of her novel, is, and I feel compelled to try it on for the day.

Erica takes a mezcal soda while I lay my cards out on the table: her new book, Work Nights, couldn’t hit closer to home. Not only is it set in my neighborhood, name-dropping well-known haunts; it also satirizes an infamous opera-house-cum-apartment-building and even clocks a stereotypical queer tattoo that, yes, I do have (albeit in a very different spot). Erica’s face drops and she attempts to hedge, to backpedal, but I stop her: “No, you’ve really hit the nail on the head here, and it’s shocking to be seen in a way I’ve never experienced in print.”

As I try to open my copy to a dog-eared page, she stops me: “No. First I need to know about you.” Erica asks who I’m reading, where I’m from, and connects over the friends we share. (After our chat, Erica texts: “The bartender thought I was the one interviewing you.”) Once she’s satisfied, she lets me turn the tables (literally), and we head to some high-tops in the corner of the bar where I yet again get to gush about Work Nights.

Set equally in Brooklyn and Midtown Manhattan, the novel follows a queer love triangle, with our protagonist floundering. In true twentysomething fashion, she wants what she can’t have, both professionally and personally. At work, she masks, diluting her personality into something palatable while observing her co-workers, who are both deeply complacent and deeply committed to the cause—ad sales at a big paper (lifted from Erica’s former tenure at The New York Times). We watch Jane envy and admire, pull people in and push them away.

Erica and I talk about the mysteries of describing Gen Z on paper, JoJo Siwa’s musical career, the contradictions of capitalism, the hardest (and easiest) parts of writing a novel, and whether straight people will like Work Nights.

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CAMERON ENGWALL: Your book feels like these concentric circles of longing: Jane yearns for Madeline, Addy yearns for Jane. Everyone wants what they can’t have—it’s really just a classic love triangle.

ERICA PEPLIN: Romantic obsession and longing are very good engines for storytelling; wanting what you can’t have is an excellent way to relate to a character. My twenties were characterized by pining after girls who disappointed me—or stood me up, or didn’t text me back. So the book definitely comes from personal experience. I think if that’s what modern dating looks like, it’s worth writing about.

Jane likes Madeline, the intern. Madeline made me laugh—as someone who’s worked in an office with Gen Z co-workers, the way she texts, how deadpan she is, how you described her clothing—it was so spot-on.  

[“Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes begins to play in the bar.]

Wow, speaking of Gen Z, have you seen JoJo Siwa sing this?

Is this one of your, like, obsessions?

No, no, no. She just … do you know the queer lore of JoJo Siwa?

No, but I have a friend who fills me in occasionally.

She released a cover where she changed the lyrics to be about her boyfriend, and then made a music video, I think? With a costume? I keep getting her version stuck in my head. It’s wild; I don’t understand it.

That makes sense. Gen Z minds are a mystery. They’re so hard to read. And there’s this almost unilateral queerness—which, as a queer person, is both beautiful and intimidating. Jane’s friends call that out: this assumption that queerness looks a certain way, and if it doesn’t, it isn’t valid.

Gen Z isn’t written into contemporary fiction that often, probably because they haven’t written themselves into it yet. It’s mostly millennials debuting right now. Did you intentionally write Madeline and Addy as generational foils?

Definitely. They’re both composites of people I’ve dated. Madeline is every flighty, hot girl I’ve wanted to like me. And Jane—she loves to love, and she loves her own disappointment.

She loves to be sad.

Yeah. I think that becomes a condition of your early twenties—your brain becomes addicted to being hurt.

Or to doing the hurting. I see it in friends: struggling with dating, but also mistreating people who like them. It becomes a cycle.

The seed of the book was sheer loneliness. I was 24–26, alone, and taking solace in writing Word documents—journal entries and stories about unhappy office workers. I worked in Midtown and secretly wrote at my desk. I’d look around and think, Everyone here has a weird life. Everyone here is quietly falling apart. That was the spark.

So it started with feeling.

Yes, and that’s actually a terrible engine for a novel. But I needed to get it out. Later, once I figured out the characters, I added plot.

That surprises me; it reads as very plot- and character-driven.

It’s autofiction, though. Every character is a facet of me. Ellie’s the oatmeal-eating perfectionist. Karen is the loudmouth, middle-aged single mom. Jane is messy. The book is autofiction, but I’m all of them.

Jane’s totally different outside the office. Her friendship with Laurel is so intimate but deadpan.

I loved writing Laurel. She’s sort of the moral center of the book, but she’s also incredibly dry. She challenges Jane without ever really scolding her.

When did the story really take shape?

I quit my job at The Times. I had all these notes on co-workers, and once I strung them together, I sensed plot. Originally, she was unnamed, but calling her Jane helped her become distinct from me. That’s when I started to build real structure.

I made Jane nonartistic on purpose. For me, writing was the light. Jane doesn’t have that clarity; she’s more realistic. The contradictions of work, capitalism, and personal identity—it plays out like Don DeLillo’s White Noise. Jane questions what money even means. She’d rather be heartbroken in a ditch than play the corporate game. She fantasizes about Berlin—freedom, being an artist—without knowing what she’d actually create.

What was the hardest revision?

Writing Jane’s thoughts. I believed the book could live in observation alone—that first person could work like a camera lens. I wanted it to feel cinematic. But my editor pushed back and said I had to go deeper. I still struggle with that—I’m afraid of boring readers.

Autofiction with a protagonist who hides.

Exactly. And readers like you, you get it. But sometimes I think, Is this even a novel? Or is it just … me, rearranged?

She’s messy, but not evil. Not an antihero—just human.

Right. I hope so.

Do you have any kind of writing ritual? Same place? Same playlist? A daily word count?

I write first thing in the morning, after reading a little with coffee. It helps to be alone, a little hungry, in silence. I don’t chase a specific number—no time goals or daily count. If I write 500 words I actually believe in, that’s more than enough.

Did you ever outline?

I did. But it changed constantly. There were so many little scenes—just one-sentence moments sometimes. I had an Excel doc with a full list of characters. I needed it to keep track of everything. The process was long. I’d take breaks, live my life, then come back to it eight months later with fresh eyes. Cut a scene. Add more from the friend group. I actually hope I never write a book like this again.

Why?

It felt sprawling and chaotic. I sobbed over it when I felt defeated.

And yet you kept going. Why?

I think some of us … it’s like the little demon of literature visits your crib, kisses your fingers, and says “You will type.” It doesn’t matter what you type—you just have to. It’s a gift and a curse. I don’t feel like I’ve lived a day unless I’ve written something. It’s a terrible addiction. So even when I thought the book was failing, I turned to other writing.

Were you reading intentionally while writing?

I just wanted to read things that made me feel. I’ll quit a book if it doesn’t move or inspire me. A good book makes you want to write. I would read John Cheever short stories about middle-aged male office workers, and I would get all sorts of ideas. And then I would read Sheila Heti and want to make the book more of a first-person exploratory.

When you were reading John Cheever—was that research, or accidental?

Totally accidental. I went to the library and thought, Oh, I’ve heard of him. For a while, I confused him with all the other old male authors. But once I read him, I thought, Oh, he’s unmistakable. A bisexual, alcoholic maniac. Fantastic.

Back to your writing process: So you don’t feel much pressure to churn it out?

None. And honestly, now that I’ve written a book, I’m more relaxed about writing. I believe we should only write when we feel we have to. If I wake up and I’m enjoying my book and don’t feel inspired, I let that be okay. I never want to force it just to check a box. I don’t want to reread something later and think Why did I write this? This is bad.

It’s validating to hear someone say you don’t have to grind every day to make something worthwhile.

And I love writing on my phone. Half the time I’m writing, I’m walking. I’m that person on the street with her face in her Notes app. People probably think I’m texting or scrolling, but I’m working. Some of my favorite lines have come to me mid-walk.

I was reading a friend’s pages this morning while walking and thought: “Everyone probably assumes I’m just on Instagram.” Are you working on anything new?

Yes. A follow-up to Work Nights. I’m editing it with my agent now. It’s darker—about infidelity.

How was writing the second book?

I leaned into Jane’s misbehavior even more. In a way, the second book feels riskier. I already proved I could write a novel. Now I have to prove it wasn’t a fluke.

Anything we didn’t cover?

Do you think straight people will like the book? My straight cousins did, but I still worry. There’s a part of me that’s still an insecure little lesbian.

Let me think of some straight people … But truly, I think it will feel like they get a peek into a world they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. And while it still has a lot of universal elements, I think it’s a really good window—good exposure—into what queer love triangles are like, how friend groups work, and what it’s like to mask in a straight, corporate setting.

Yeah, because I think we all experience some level of impostor syndrome. Well, now it sounds like I was fishing for a compliment …

… and I think it’s fun and spicy—which everybody likes!

I also deliberately wanted to make the book very approachable—because I can be a pretentious, serious asshole in real life. But I was like, let’s actually make something accessible. There’s a tension between making something readable and still letting it be freaky. I want both. I want to be queer, name-drop Gertrude Stein, and let people deal. Maybe they’ll learn something. I’m not a teacher. I’m just presenting a clown. This is her story—laugh at her, enjoy it.

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Erica Peplin is a writer from Detroit, now based in Brooklyn. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Joyland, The Millions, McSweeney’s, The Village Voice, and more. From 2015 to 2016, she worked in the advertising department of The New York Times. Since then, she’s worked as a shipping clerk, a high school custodian, and a restaurant server.

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Featured image: Photo of Erica Peplin by Carson Baum.