Calling Out

After a rough breakup followed by a few months of wanly suicidal gestures like "switching to nonlight cigarettes, not washing my hands after the subway, forgoing my seatbelt and driving fast," Jane (no last name) packs her life in her car and leaves New York, headed west. When she stops in Utah and takes a job answering phones at a Mormon-approved escort service, she is adamant that she won't go any further into the sex trade than the front desk. But perhaps inevitably, she finds herself working as an escort and coming alive through her "dates." Although there is body contact, her new duties involve more playacting and kindness than full sex—which provides a foil for all the playacting and kindness she'd offered her ex, McCallister, who attempts to woo her back, tepidly, throughout. Meadows, making her debut, gives Jane a thoughtfully staccato first-person, but it isn't quite enough to wrestle larger insights from her racy, provocative premise. (June 27)