The Devil Wears Prada (novel) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Andrea Sachs, a recent graduate of Brown with a degree in English moves to New York City hoping to find a job in publishing. She travels with her best-friend Lily, a graduate student at Columbia, and blankets the city with her résumé, hoping for a foot in the door of the magazine industry to further her dream of working for The New Yorker. She gets a surprise interview at the Elias-Clark Group and is hired as the junior assistant of Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of the fashion magazine "Runway". Although she knows little of the fashion world, she is told repeatedly that "a million girls would die for job". Andrea is told that if she manages to work for Miranda for a year, she can have her pick of jobs within the magazine industry.

At a celebrity party Andrea meets Christian Collinsworth, a charismatic Yale graduate who has been identified as the hot, up-and-coming writer of their generation. They become attracted to each other, complicating her relationship with her boyfriend, Alex.

Andrea's relationships become complicated because of her new job. Lily increasingly turns to alcohol and picking up dubious men to relieve the pressures of graduate school. Alex, struggling with his own demanding job as an inner-city schoolteacher, grows frustrated with Andrea's long hours and constant stress. Andrea's relationship with her family also suffers. Matters finally come to a head when her coworker Emily gets mononucleosis and Andrea must travel to Paris with Miranda in her stead. Andrea agrees, although this will mean canceling a long-awaited trip with Alex.

In Paris, she has a surprise encounter with Christian. Later that night, Miranda finally lets down her guard and asks Andrea what she has learned, and where she would like to work afterwards. She promises to place phone calls to people she knows at The New Yorker on Andrea's behalf once her year is up and suggests that she take on some small writing assignments at Runway.

Back at the hotel, Andrea gets urgent calls from Alex and her parents asking her to call them. She does so and learns that Lily is comatose after driving drunk and wrecking a car. Though Andrea is pressured by her family and Alex to return home, she tells Miranda she will honor her commitment to Runway. Miranda is pleased, and tells her that her future in magazine publishing is bright. At the Paris fashion show for Christian Dior, however, Miranda phones her with yet another impossible demand. Andrea finally realizes that her family and friends are more important than her job, and realizes to her horror that she is becoming more and more like Miranda. She refuses to comply with Miranda's latest outrageous request, and when Miranda scolds her publicly, Andrea replies, "Fuck you, Miranda. Fuck you". She is fired on the spot, and returns home to reconnect with her friends and family. Her romantic relationship with Alex is beyond repair, but they remain friends. Lily recovers and fares well in court for her DUI charge, receiving only community service.

In the last chapter Andrea learns that her tiff with Miranda made her a minor celebrity when the incident made 'Page Six'. Afraid she has been blacklisted from publishing for good, she moves back with her parents and works on short fiction, financing her unemployment with the profits from reselling the designer clothing she had been provided with for her trip. Seventeen buys one of her stories. At the novel's end, she is returning to the Elias-Clark building to discuss a position at one of the company's other magazines. She sees a girl who she realizes is in fact, Miranda's new junior assistant, who looks as harried and put-upon as she once did.