The Pisces
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019
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- €9.99
Publisher Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019
'Of all the books that I read this summer I think this was my absolute favourite. It really blew me away' DOLLY ALDERTON
'Frank, provocative and brilliant' INDEPENDENT
'Utterly mesmerising' TATLER
'Hilarious, poignant, sexy. A brilliant story about why we crave connection and how to find ourselves' ELLE
'Laugh-out-loud funny' i
CHOSEN AS A SUMMER READ BY TATLER, THE TIMES, ELLE AND YOU MAGAZINE
Lucy has been writing her dissertation for nine years when she and her boyfriend have a dramatic break up. After she hits rock bottom, her sister in Los Angeles insists that Lucy dog-sit for the summer.
Staying in a gorgeous house on Venice Beach, Lucy can find little relief from her anxiety – not in the Greek chorus of women in her love addiction therapy group, not in her frequent Tinder excursions, not even in Dominic the dog's easy affection.
Everything changes when she becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer while sitting alone on the beach rocks one night. But when Lucy learns the truth about his identity, their relationship, and Lucy's understanding of what love should look like, take a very unexpected turn.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The debut novel by poet and essayist Broder (So Sad Today) is an alternately ribald and poignant fantasy about a relationship between a despondent graduate student and a merman. Lucy, stalled out after years of trying to write a dissertation on Sappho and melting down after her boyfriend breaks up with her, heads out from her desert campus to the beaches of southern California, where she dogsits her sister's affable hound. Despite joining a sex and love addiction support group, whose members Broder depicts with affectionate sarcasm, Lucy hooks up with one wildly unsuitable man after another. Then, sitting on a rock at the beach and feeling borderline suicidal, she meets a sensitive hunk whose only drawback is that he sports a tail instead of legs. Temporarily, at least, they work out their differences, with Lucy transporting him at night to her beach house in a little red wagon. Broder evokes the details of bad sex in wincingly naturalistic detail, and even if the good sex is a little more soft-focus, it makes for a satisfying fantasy. Broder makes her merman a more complex and believable character than most romantic heroes; her novel is a consistently funny and enjoyable ride.
