Sophie, Autumn 2026
Sophie Pattison is such a lovely person – warm, kind, relentlessly positive. Loved by her best friend Emma, so close to her brother Laurie, well-liked by her teammates at the literary festival, even though they’re all younger than her and wondering why, age thirty-seven, Sophie is still in this job, and why lately she’s stopped mentioning her husband, Paul, and doesn’t seem like her usual cheerful self since last year, when she was forced to move house. And sometimes, it's true, one day in her life can feel like the entire month of January. It's also true she can go an entire weekend without speaking. But she's fine really. She spends her time at home (in a flat that hopefully isn’t her forever flat) reading novels, finding comfort in stories, set away from her own life.
Then, one day she stumbles upon an author she first read a long time ago. At the time, they’re weren’t really her thing. This time, the author’s books are deep solace. Soon, a a kind of company that Sophie hasn't felt for so long. It's like friendship. It’s almost like love.
And Sophie would love to meet the author, although she never will, obviously. The author is too beautiful and famous ever to visit Sophie’s festival. And in a way, thank goodness, because that would change everything…Sophie's entire life.
Hilariously candid and raw, Sophie, Standing There is a bittersweet story of love, loneliness and finding connection in the most unlikely of places.
‘Heartwarming, tender and so funny, Sophie, Standing There is a wonderful, bittersweet story of what it means to be truly, achingly lonely. I loved it.’
GILLIAN ANDERSON
‘Sophie, Standing There is a moving examination of what it means to be alone in the world, and what it means to find connection. It is, by turns, heartbreaking, hilarious, and deeply hopeful. Meg Mason is a dazzling talent.’
ANN PATCHETT, author of The Dutch House
‘So smart, so funny, so moving—Mason has done it again—this time using the behind the scenes mechanics at a literary festival to reveal the complexity of loneliness and how one woman attempts to dig herself out. I absolutely loved it.’
BONNIE GARMUS, author of Lessons in Chemistry
'Truly inspired and original' ESTHER FREUD, author of My Sister and Other Lovers
‘Sophie, Standing There unfolds like a strange origami crane in reverse--so achingly tender and so brilliantly subtle that I could never put it down. The loneliness of our inner world and the quiet movement towards connection--nobody evokes it as breathtakingly as Meg Mason. And by "it," I guess I mean simply being a person. Dazzling.’
CATHERINE NEWMAN, author of Sandwich
‘I loved Sophie, and I love Meg Mason's brain and the strange, wonderful, funny stories she gives us.’
ANN NEPOLITANO, author of Hello Beautiful