Helpfully Yours

The year is 1954, and in New York City the Cold War hums along, but at the Fizbus Times something far stranger is unfolding. Tarb Morfatch, the first female journalist from the planet Fizbus to work on Earth, has arrived with high hopes of helping her fellow Fizbians navigate the treacherous waters of Terran culture. What could be simpler than teaching aliens how to act like humans? As it turns out, quite a lot. Tarb finds herself entangled in a dizzying maze of customs, misunderstandings, and expectations that threaten to unravel both her mission and her sense of self. Her editor, Stet Zarnon, proves as confounding as the city itself, and the line between helping her people and betraying them begins to blur. Evelyn E. Smith delivers a sharp, funny, occasionally aching portrait of what it means to be foreign in a world that demands you pretend otherwise.