A Searing Social Novel Featuring U.F.O.s, Mutants and Wormholes

In Isabel Waidner’s new novel, “Corey Fah Does Social Mobility,” a struggling writer gets pulled into a surreal, multidimensional quest for a coveted literary prize.

The cover of Isabel Waidner’s book is dark blue, with the author’s name and title — “Corey Fah Does Social Mobility” — superimposed in block lettering in bright colors.

In the first few pages of Isabel Waidner’s new novel “Corey Fah Does Social Mobility,” our titular character learns that they’ve won “The Award for the Fictionalization of Social Evils,” a literary prize that comes with a substantial cash purse (which Corey, a working-class writer who lives in a social housing estate, desperately needs) and enormous prestige (which, according to the prize committee, is even more valuable than money). To secure these bounties, all Corey has to do is collect the award trophy. But the trophy doesn’t look like a trophy — it’s a “neon beige” U.F.O. And to make matters worse, it’s disappeared, possibly into a wormhole.

The prize committee is less than helpful when Corey asks for assistance. “The assumption had been that a winner would know how to collect. That prize culture etiquette, its unwritten rules and regulations, would be second nature to them,” Corey reflects. But Corey doesn’t know how to collect, and the unwritten rules and regulations aren’t second nature to them. “I’d not won an award before, and neither had anybody I knew.” This is the paradox that drives “Corey Fah Does Social Mobility”: A person needs to already have social and financial capital in order to get social and financial capital.