Apprentice to the Flower Poet Z. is about two women: Annabelle, an aspiring young poet from the suburbs, and Z., the celebrated mentor who tries to hold her back. It’s no accident that their initials span the alphabet, as this hilarious book is about language, writing, and the appropriation of ideas. It is also about the high-wire relations between older and younger women, between reputation and aspiration.

“There is so much I wanted to learn from Z.,” Annabelle confesses in the opening chapter. Obsessed with the question “What is poetry?” Annabelle thinks her new job with the distinguished Flower Poet Z. will help her penetrate the answer. What is revealed to Annabelle instead are the secrets of Z.’s personal life—not least, her dysfunctional family, adulterous behavior, and professional tyranny. Meanwhile, Annabelle is charged with finding Z.’s favorite ink (“jet black, not midnight black, not shoeshine black”), buying prescription cat food for a cranky literary critic, and illegally beheading flowers in the New York Botanical Gardens—anything to preserve Z.’s “psychic space.”

As for what Annabelle learns about the literary world, much of it occurs in spite of Z.—in writing seminars where one-line poems are toiled over for years; in bed with her James Joyce–fixated lover, Harry Banks; at a confessional-poetry retreat at the home of Z.’s glamorous nemesis, Braun Brown. Still, Annabelle remains loyal to Z., until Z. egregiously crosses the line.

From Annabelle and Z. to the painfully obscure Miss Jane Elliot, Emily Dickinson, and Sylvia Plath, Debra Weinstein’s Apprentice to the Flower Poet Z. amounts to a joy ride through the world of poetry and the emergence of a great new comic voice.

"[A] funny, catty first novel....There's much to appreciate in this energetic satire, but it will appeal most to readers who've had a brush with this insular milieu." Publishers Weekly

"Weinstein's spare and agile debut novel is a marvelously toothsome addition to the [academic satire] genre....Weinstein's tale...explores the conflicts of art and ambition, and reveals the time-tested truth that we must teach ourselves the most important lessons in life." Donna Seaman, Booklist

"[D]eliciously nasty....Weinstein has buoyant fun with the pettiness and pretension of New York's literati. It's All About Eve for the sonnet set....Weinstein captures the great poet's majestic self-regard..." Lisa Zeidner, The New York Times Book Review

"Brilliantly satirical." O Magazine

"[A] pitch-perfect take on the self-obsessed artist." Village Voice

"Apprentice will...have appeal for anyone who has suffered from the indignities of a boss from hell." The San Francisco Chronicle

"[A] comic gem....Weinstein conveys an overall authenticity that is a perfect, hilariously on-target cameo of the world of New York arts and letters....An auspicious debut." St. Petersburg Times

"Apprentice to the Flower Poet Z. is an extremely funny and touching look at the high-stakes, low-paying world of poetry. Debra Weinstein has plenty to say about protégés and mentors, and art and ambition. I thoroughly enjoyed this book." Meg Wolitzer, author of The Wife

"Anyone who appreciates poetry and has a sense of humor will very much enjoy reading Debra Weinstein's entertaining first novel." Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran

"Bloomed (and lingered in my thoughts) like
A Basho haiku." Allen Kurzweil, author of The Grand Complication

"[A] send-up of pretension that lightly grazes such themes as betrayal, family dysfunction, lust, sexuality, and plagiarism. Although the book's conclusion feels rushed, Apprentice is a delightful read..." Library Journal

In a wickedly funny first novel, Weinstein writes about an aspiring young poet and the celebrated mentor who tries to hold her back.

Debra Weinstein received NYU's Bobst Literary Award for Emerging Writers for her volume of poetry, Rodent Angel. She is also a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and a New York State Foundation for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship for Fiction. She has been in residence at both Yaddo and MacDowell. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Tikkun, and The Portable Lower East Side. She lives in Manhattan.