Lexi Freiman Wrote the Year’s Funniest Novel

I met the writer Lexi Freiman last summer when we both happened to be attending the same writer’s residency in the hills above Costa Brava in Spain. The first thing I learned about her was that she was wickedly funny. The second was that she had a novel out at the end of the year, about a woman who becomes obsessed with Ayn Rand, that 20th century heroine of me-first capitalism, which eventually leads her to a Greek island where she joins an ego-killing cult. That sounds crazy, I thought when she told me the plot—and may have even said it depending on how much wine I’d consumed at the afternoon snack gatherings.