Book Review | ‘Romantic Comedy’ by Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld’s new novel Romantic Comedy really is a romantic comedy, complete with lovers who initially seem mismatched, complications and hurdles, and an ending that will satisfy any fan of the genre. The book is also a romantic take on comedy itself, as the protagonist, Sally Milz, works as a long-time sketch writer for The Night Owls, familiarly known as TNO, a stand-in for Saturday Night Live.

The novel is divided into three long chapters. The opening chapter, set during a single week in April 2018, has the most energy. Sittenfeld has done her research into the life of a staff writer during an average week in the run of SNL, and readers will be quickly caught up in the chaos and excitement of putting together an hour-and-a-half show from scratch in just six days.

Sally is a writer, definitely not a performer, but her two best friends on the show, Henrietta and Viv, are writer-performers, and over the course of the novel they also serve as the support team that every heroine needs as she faces the ups and downs of a romance. Sittenfeld’s version of Lorne Michaels, Nigel Petersen, is equal parts ego and empathy. However, the most crucial doppelgänger for the plot is a Pete Davidson/Colin Jost equivalent named Danny Horst who co-hosts TNO’s equivalent of “Weekend Update” and is engaged to Annabel Lily, a young woman with Ariana Grande/Scarlett Johansson star power. As Sally puts it, this pairing upsets her not because she is in love with Danny or Annabel, but because “Annabel Lily was a gorgeous, talented world-famous movie star, and Danny was a schlub.” As a result, when aging singer-songwriter Noah Brewster comes on to host the show, Sally pitches a sketch that she calls “The Danny Horst Rule,” which states that “‘men at TNO date above their station, but women never do.’”