When it comes to fiction, humor is serious business. If tragedy appeals to the emotions, wit appeals to the mind. “You have to know where the funny is,” the writer Sheila Heti says, “and if ...

Criminally — for such a savagely funny writer — the jokes don’t land. The worst lines belong to the benighted Mutt, who ought to have suffered enough: “Paw on my heart,” he is forced to say.

A writer whose bestselling novels (including "American Wife" and "Prep") have been translated into 30 languages, named to many "best of the year" lists and optioned for TV shows and movies?