Shortlisted for the 2021 Firecracker Award

Longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Hemingway Award for a Debut Novel

NPR, "Favorite Books of 2020"

Publishers Weekly, "Best Books of 2020"

Chicago Tribune, "Books to Read in Winter 2020"

Literary Hub, "Most Anticipated Books of 2020"

Bustle, "Must-Read Books of 2020"

I-D, "Best Books of 2020"

Refinery29, "Best Indie Books of 2020"

Bustle, "Must-Read Books 2020"

Thrillist, "Best Books of 2020"

Tor.com, "Best Books of 2020"

"In [Temporary], you can hear an old note, a note I've missed in American fiction, and am surprised to have noticed myself missing-for so long it seemed dominant to the point of imperishability. The violent, surreal, often cartoonish scenarios delivered deadpan that draw attention to the freakishness of ordinary life-from writers like Donald Barthelme, Gordon Lish, Ben Marcus. . . . This novel could have easily sagged into dogma, but Leichter keeps the narrative crisp, swift and sardonic. Temporary reads like a comic and mournful Alice in Wonderland set in the gig economy, an eerily precise portrait of ourselves in a cracked mirror." --Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

"[A] delirious and deeply humane satire. . . . Temporary has the manic, goofing energy of a lounge act." --Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

"A batty, playful satire, Temporary twists the jargon and anxieties of a millennial gig economy into a dreamscape of spires and scaffolding through which we swing as our narrator seeks out her steadiness. . . . In the trippy, shape-shifting architecture of Temporary, we come to discover that the landscape around us is constructed on shaky foundations, but also that there's comfort in uncanny in-betweenness." --Los Angeles Times

"A brisk, wildly imaginative first novel. . . . Leichter's deeper interest is in mining how transient, insecure work inflects our private life--if it even permits a private life. Can we afford to stop working? Do we remember how?" --The New York Times, "Editors' Choice"

"[A] refreshingly whimsical debut that explores the agonies of millennial life under late capitalism with the kind of surrealist humor that will offer anxious minds a reprieve from our calamitous news cycle. . . . As a book about the brutality of the work world, Temporary is a great success. Leichter has managed to blend the oddball and the existential into a tale of millennial woe that's both dreadful and hilarious at once. This book should be recommended reading for workers-and essential reading for nonessential workers-everywhere." --The Washington Post

"A temp worker's bailiwick expands from office admin duties to sailing on a pirate ship and performing absurd tasks such as subbing for a barnacle on a rock. The flights from one assignment to another transition seamlessly through captivating dream logic and magical, inventive imagery, leading to staggering insights about the nature of existence." --Publishers Weekly, "Best Fiction of 2020"

"Temporary sits in a constellation of works by writers like Jen George, Eugene Li