Daddy Issues

Sam Pulaski is 26 years old, holds a master's degree in art history from Columbia University, and sleeps on a child-sized daybed in her mother's home office in Columbus, Ohio. She has been living there since 2020, when the pandemic canceled a research fellowship to study the works of Giuseppe Baggio, a self-taught Italian artist, in Verona. The sponsoring foundation later closed, and her doctoral applications were rejected. Sam works at Lōkahi Lounge, a tiki-themed restaurant where her father's connections got her hired as a teenager, and spends her days doomscrolling and tending to roughly 5,000 comic books her father left behind when he moved to Florida. The comics once anchored their bond: As a child, Sam accompanied him to flea markets and estate sales, learning to spot valuable issues and earning his praise as a "prodigy." She clings to the collection as proof their relationship still means something.

Sam's mother, Jennifer Schuster, shares the condo with her fiancé, Perry, and offers Sam a steady stream of job leads, persistently suggesting she contact Barbara Silverton, a family friend with academic connections. Sam's routine is disrupted when a new neighbor moves in next door, rattling the shared wall. At the building's pool, Sam watches a devoted father play make-believe games with his nine-year-old daughter, Kira, and gets pulled into an impromptu game herself.

The noisy neighbor turns out to be the same man. Nick Martino, a general manager at a nearby Chili's, has moved into the adjacent unit. Jennifer welcomes him warmly and starts a quiet campaign to set him up with Shawna, the recently divorced daughter of a book club friend.

Sam's three-year friends-with-benefits relationship with Hal, a coworker at Lōkahi and aspiring novelist who dropped out of Ohio State's Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program, is intimate but never defined. Sam's cousin Romily, who also lives with her parents, delivers a data-driven PowerPoint warning Sam that waiting for a partner to develop reciprocal feelings never works.

Events accelerate when Jennifer and Perry announce they plan to move to Portugal after the wedding and rent out the condo, effectively giving Sam an eviction notice. That same evening, Hal invites Sam to a literary event, then abandons her to pursue Leen Zweig, the evening's featured author. When Sam confronts him, Hal insists they never agreed to exclusivity. Sam leaves alone, drunk, and newly homeless.

Desperate for a restroom, Sam has her rideshare stop at Nick's Chili's, where he is working late. He feeds her, and they talk while he repairs a dishwasher. Nick tells Sam plainly that he likes her and is attracted to her. Stunned by a directness she has never encountered, Sam grabs his shirt and kisses him. The encounter escalates before Sam, overwhelmed, asks to stop. They agree to figure out what comes next.

Sam blocks Hal's number and begins studying for her learner's permit. Perry drives Sam to take the test, and they bond afterward, Perry confiding about their own past experience dating someone with children. Nick and Sam start an official relationship, communicating through late-night calls through their shared wall. Nick shares details of his separation from Kira's mother, Nora, acknowledging that Nora shouldered more of the parenting during their marriage.

At the July fireworks, Kira briefly disappears in the dispersing crowd. Nick transforms into a frantic searcher, and Sam, though she helps look, feels invisible during his panic. The incident forces an honest conversation: Sam discloses that she had an abortion at 19 and may never feel a parental instinct. Nick responds with acceptance.

Their relationship deepens, but complications arrive when Nick asks Sam to watch Kira during a work emergency. The afternoon goes well until Kira uses a near-mint comic book as a drawing surface, ruining it with marker bleed-through. Sam loses her temper and calls Kira a "spoiled brat." In a heated argument, Sam blurts out that she is not ready to be a stepmother, and Nick reveals he and Nora are not yet legally divorced, only separated. They reconcile, with Sam admitting she has what Kira calls "hot pink feelings," the child's term for romantic attraction.

At Jennifer and Perry's wedding, multiple tensions converge. Jennifer tries to introduce Nick to Shawna, but Kira disrupts the moment by shoving Sam, spilling champagne. Nick tells Shawna he is in a new relationship. Barbara Silverton offers Sam a temporary administrative assistant position at her college in upstate New York. Jennifer corners Sam, furious about the deception: "When you lie and manipulate people? It reminds me of your father" (251). Hal appears at the reception and again suggests they move to New York together. Sam refuses and ends their relationship definitively, recognizing his pattern of emotional unavailability.

That night, Nick tells Sam he is in love with her, and Sam reciprocates. Jennifer unexpectedly returns and walks in on them. The next morning, a painful argument ensues. Jennifer warns that Nick's commitments to Kira and Nora will always leave Sam as a secondary priority, then delivers a devastating revelation: Sam's father did not save her childhood drawings in the comic boxes. He left them on the floor when he packed his truck. Jennifer picked them up herself.

On a rainy walk, Nick tells Sam he cannot ask her to stay. Keeping her tethered to his geographically fixed life would be selfish. Sam asks for a clean break. Nick turns and walks away.

Sam moves to upstate New York and starts the job. She discovers employees can audit classes and enrolls in a comics art course emphasizing expressive, uninhibited drawing over technical precision. As a young student, a professor's assessment that she was merely "a competent draftsman" who imitated other artists had driven Sam away from studio art entirely. Now she fills notebooks with autobiographical comics, reclaiming drawing as self-expression. She earns her driver's license and, in a video call, tells her mother she is reconsidering whether a PhD is the only valid path. Jennifer responds with tears and genuine support.

A visit to Hal at his aunt's apartment in Manhattan provides final closure. Hal now works at a literary agency, a position secured through Leen Zweig's connections. He gives Sam the comic book she was trying to buy the day they met, and Sam recognizes that her infatuation existed primarily in her imagination, "in the space between the panels," rather than in reality. She leaves without tears.

Back in Columbus, Sam moves in with Romily, who is now pursuing a master's in applied statistics at Ohio State, and begins selling the comic collection online. At an estate sale, she finds a blank father-daughter journal, its prompts entirely unfilled. The discovery triggers the emotional release she needs to let go of the comics as a lifeline to her absent father.

Kira messages Sam in a panic: She has gotten her first period at parkour class, with her mother out of town and Nick unable to arrive for hours. Sam drives to a store, buys supplies, and coaches Kira through the experience at the rec center. Before leaving, Kira types a message into Sam's phone: "My dad really loves you."

Sam waits outside. When Nick arrives and sees her, he stops in the middle of the parking lot. Sam tells him she realized she had been chasing a single career path while ignoring everything else that could give her life meaning. Her feelings for Nick only intensified with distance, and having a kid in her life is "a feature, not a bug." Nick shares that he and Nora are finalizing their divorce. He invites Sam to join him and Kira for Christmas Eve dinner, calling her part of "the inner circle." The novel closes with a single comic panel: Nick's car in an empty Chili's parking lot at night, the rear window fogged, interrupted only by the sole of a Doc Martens boot.