Discontent

A Novel

De: Beatriz Serrano, Mara Faye Lethem - translator

From a dazzling new international literary voice, an audacious, darkly funny novel about a young woman whose carefully crafted office persona begins to crack when she’s forced to attend her company’s annual retreat

On the surface, Marisa's life looks enviable. She lives in a beautiful apartment in the center of Madrid, she has a hot neighbor who is always around to sleep with her, and she’s quickly risen through the ranks at an advertising agency. And yet she’s drowning in a dark hole of existential dread induced by the banality of corporate life. Marisa hates her job and everyone at it. She spends her working hours locked in her office hiding from her coworkers, bingeing YouTube videos, and getting high on tranquilizers. When she has the time, she escapes to her favorite museum where she contemplates the meaning of life while staring at Hieronymus Bosch paintings, or trying to get hit by a car so she can go on disability.

But Marisa's dubious success, which is largely built on lies and work she's stolen from other people, is in danger of being revealed when she's forced to go on her company’s team-building retreat. Isolated in the Segovia forests, haunted by the deeply buried memory of a former coworker, and surrounded by psychopathic bosses, annoyingly overzealous coworkers, flirty retreat staff, and an excess of drugs, Marisa is pushed to the brink of a complete spiral.

©2025 Beatriz Serrano (P)2025 Random House Audio