After leaving her unhappy home in Utica behind for a new life in New York, Vivian Lesperance has big dreams for her future and only needs the means to achieve them. When she meets Oscar Schmidt and Squire Clancey, rivals in the soap and scented candle industry who are locked in a battle for floral oils and tallow, she knows she has found her ticket to success. Through her expert manipulation, the three join together to found Clancey & Schmidt, a wildly successful manufactory of candles, soaps, and perfumes. As Oscar and Squire fall in love and Vivian pursues both power in business and her relationships with women across the city, they reckon with both their newfound success and the threat of exposure that looms over them all.
Mutual Interest is Olivia Wolfgang-Smith’s second novel, following her debut novel Glassworks (2023), which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Apple, and Good Housekeeping. Wolfgang-Smith was also awarded the 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Fiction, holds an MFA from Florida State University, a BA from Hamilton College, and currently lives with her partner in Brooklyn.
Because its all-knowing and endlessly witty narrator makes it impossible to put down, its lovable and formidable characters will find their way into your heart, and its scope from the personal to the global asks us to reconsider how we think about family, success, and history.