Novel Advice

A book of advice columns, in which characters from across classic literature write in for help with their very particular problems and receive guidance from the opinionated Aunt Antigone.

// formatLiterary Humor Book
// publisherSimon & Schuster / Tiller Press
// my roleAuthor
// about

An agony aunt for the fictional

Novel Advice is a literary humor book featuring characters from the Western canon, seeking advice about the stories they're trapped in. Ophelia writes in about her dating woes. Dr. Jekyll is desperate for work-life balance tips. Mrs. Bennet needs financial advice. Ishmael wonders about rushing into a relationship too quickly. Their letters are answered by Aunt Antigone, who dishes out practical wisdom with a fair dose of snark.

Rather than organizing the book chronologically and sticking to canonical groupings like Elizabethan or Modernist, each chapter is built around a theme: Love, Money, Health, Marriage, etc. This allowed me to group characters around the problems they share. The chapter "Receiving An Education" brings together figures from Anne of Green Gables, The Catcher in the Rye, Candide, and "The Call of Cthulhu"; characters from different worlds sharing similar struggles.

Open spread of the Novel Advice table of contents, listing chapter titles and character names from classic literature — including Anne Shirley, Holden Caulfield, Lady Macbeth, Gregor Samsa, Captain Ahab, and Ebenezer Scrooge — organized into thematic chapters such as 'Receiving an Education,' 'Body, Mind and Spirit,' 'Bonds of Matrimony,' 'The Way We Work,' and 'Money Matters.'
Back cover of Novel Advice by Jay Bushman, on a red background, with copy describing literary characters writing to advice columnist Aunt Antigone, and blurbs from Sean Stewart and Amber Benson.

The book is equal parts humor and genuine affection for these characters and the questions at the heart of their stories. (There is also a hidden message inside which, to my knowledge, no one has yet found.)