Author: Halle Butler

Author

Halle Butler

Halle Butler is an American novelist known for sharp, darkly comic portraits of young adults stuck in dead-end jobs and unravelling friendships. Born in 1985 in Bloomington, Illinois, she trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has spent her writing life in that city. Her debut, Jillian, published in 2015, follows a bitter medical receptionist and her relentlessly upbeat colleague, and it is the novel offered here. The New Me (2019) was hailed as a defining work of millennial fiction, and Banal Nightmare (2024) turned the same unsparing eye on a woman retreating to her home town. Granta named her one of its Best of Young American Novelists and the National Book Foundation made her a 5 Under 35 honoree.

As of 2026 Butler remains an active voice in American letters: an interview appeared in BOMB Magazine in December 2025 and her work was the subject of a Chicago Review of Books essay in March 2026.

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Jillian – Halle Butler

by Halle Butler 23/06/2023 0

Twenty-four-year-old Megan may have her whole life ahead of her, but it already feels like a dead end, thanks to her dreadful job as a gastroenterologist’s... Read more.