Proof of Progress: A Novel

From the author of the Good Morning America Book Club pick Save What’s Left comes a witty and sharp-tongued novel about an actress whose manuscript is thirty-seven years overdue—and the life moments that led to its delay.

Maria Astorini, once popular character actress and late-night talk show darling, is having a moment. The B-list actress has survived deaths, divorces, a famous mother, a Hollywood blacklist, a string of public embarrassments, an aging face, financial ruin, an empty nest, a difficult best friend, and a worldwide pandemic. Now, she’s back and bigger than ever. A small, unexpected role has heightened her celebrity status and propelled her, at age sixty-five, into the limelight. And then, along comes the call Maria has spent decades avoiding. It’s her publisher asking, “Where is that book?”

Maria knows the world doesn’t need another celebrity memoir. To finally fulfill her contract, Maria writes, or attempts to write, or, at the very least, sends a pile of pages meant to vaguely resemble the book she promised to deliver nearly four decades earlier.

In a series of bite-sized anecdotes, she candidly recalls her past, chronicling the significant, and insignificant moments of her full, funny, and extraordinarily unpredictable life.

Maria hasn’t been able to write a book about her life—she’s been too busy living it.

Praise for Save What's Left:

“Irreverent and unexpectedly tender, this story takes neighborhood feuding to new heights and finds beauty and reinvention in unlikely places. A wickedly funny debut.” - Oprah Daily

“I loved every page of Save What’s Left—this voice, this eye, this story, its originality and wit, its offbeat social satire, its loopy cynicism, and a whole town’s good intentions gone awry. Fighting city hall has never been so delicious. Brava, Elizabeth Castellano. I can’t wait for your next book.” - Elinor Lipman, author of Every Tom, Dick & Harry

“Save What’s Left is an absolute delight. It’s laugh out loud funny and full of heart. I loved it.” - J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of The Cliffs

“Castellano’s wickedly funny debut unfurls in miserable yet gleeful detail the soul-sucking nightmare of owning a house on the Long Island oceanfront. . . . Clearly, the key requirement for successful beach house ownership is a (possibly illegal) sense of humor. Bring it on!” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“When her marriage goes bust, Kathleen heads for Long Island, where the challenges of owning a beach house—okay, a converted oyster shack—fuel a series of unfortunate, yet absolutely hilarious, events.” - People

“With its wisecracking protagonist—Kathleen Deane, still reeling from her husband Tom’s declaration that he was unhappy with their Kansas life and marriage—Save What’s Left brings a tongue-in-cheek tone to the beach read genre.” - Time