From the award-winning, bestselling author of Sorrow and Bliss comes an achingly tender, poignant, funny and bittersweet story of love, loneliness and finding connection in the most unlikely of places.

'So smart, so funny, so moving – Mason has done it again, this time using behind the scenes of 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

Sophie Pattison is such a lovely person. Warm, kind, amazingly positive. She works as a freelance sound technician for literary festivals. She is a massive reader and was recently forced to move house. She is bracingly lonely.* So much so, the absence of others feels like a physical weight, if that makes sense. But then Sophie discovers an author through work, and comes to adore her. Her books, interviews and podcasts, her wisdom and brilliance, her beautiful words. It's like solace and company. It's almost like love. And Sophie would love to meet her, although she never will, obviously. The author would never come to her festival. She's too famous for that. Too brilliant, too beautiful. And in a way, thank goodness, because that would change everything. Sophie's entire life.

But ... what if she did?

* although she has a best friend called Emma, and an amazing brother. And a husband. But a number of things happened there.

Praise for Sophie, Standing There

'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 Tom Lake

'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 Wreck

'I feel like I know Meg Mason's characters; they are relatable enough to be universal, but always have that edge or quirk that makes them unexpected - and completely compelling. Anyone who can make me sigh wistfully and snort with laughter in the same paragraph has my literary loyalty for life.' Jo Jo Moyes

'Massively sad, hilariously funny and so epigrammatic that after writing down the novel's pithily astute phrases, I realised I was almost writing out the whole book' Barbara Trapido, Brother of the More Famous Jack

'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, Want

'The lucky reader of Sophie, Standing There peers at the world through Sophie's eyes, and wonders how her life shaped this view. When the answers are revealed, we experience a kind of wholeness with her. Or at least the possibility of wholeness. I loved Sophie, and I love Meg Mason's brain and the strange, wonderful, funny stories she gives us' Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful

'Truly inspired and original' Esther Freud, My Sister and Other Lovers

'Mason's third novel, centered on an endearingly self-doubting woman, is filled with wry insights into the backstage world of book festivals and their famous authors. It is a special treat for book lovers.' Library Journal starred review

'The novel is precise and devastating and keenly observational in the vein of Sally Rooney's Normal People, Rachel Joyce's The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, and Taffy Brodesser-Akner's Fleishman Is in Trouble. Deeply witty and hard to put down, Sophie, Standing There is a piercing, achingly human novel about the enormous courage required to step out of the wings and into your own life.' Booklist starred review

'Sophie, Standing There is a moving meditation on connection, loneliness and the allure of celebrity. Mason writes with an enviable lightness of touch, her prose rich with astute observations and razor-sharp wit ... I loved this.' The Australian

'Funny in its very bones ... This is a real book-lover's book. Mason has again achieved the impressive feat of balancing sadness with humour to profoundly enjoyable effect. You won't forget Sophie in a hurry.' NZ Listener

'A novel that is a dream to read - sentences that slip down, that simultaneously twist at the heartstrings and knock at the funnybone ... Deeply satisfying but never twee. There's a master intelligence at work in the architecture of this novel that feels very much like a magic trick. The writer watches us as we become immersed in her creation. The final chapter is a breathtaking breaking of the fourth wall, checking that capacity to imagine, tugging even tighter our entanglement with story and storytellers.' The Spinoff

'It's so beautifully written and Sophie's unexquisite (real word) world is described so exquisitely. I absolutely lived and breathed Sophie. Such a tender, funny, sad, moving, complicated, painful and yet hopeful book. Georgia Pritchett, My Mess is a Bit of a Life

Praise for Sorrow and Bliss:

'Gloriously tender and absorbing ... It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud ... Mason pulls off something extraordinary in this huge-hearted novel, alchemising an unbearable anguish into something tender and hilarious and redemptive and wise, without ever undermining its gravity or diminishing its pain' The Guardian

'A raucously funny, beautifully written, emotion-bashing book' The Times

'Devastating and sharply witty' Books+Publishing

'A book you'll want to devour in one sitting ... fresh and revelatory, sharp, racy and entertaining throughout' Saturday Paper