Fat Swim
Fiction
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- Pedido anticipado
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- Se espera: 28 abr 2026
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- USD 10.99
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- Pedido anticipado
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- USD 10.99
Descripción editorial
An electrifying collection of linked stories following a cast of characters navigating bodies, queerness, power, and sex—with radical results—from the bestselling author of Housemates.
“These interconnected stories blitzed my brain and gut. Prepare to be shaken.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division and Heavy
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026: Playboy, Literary Hub, Debutiful, LGBTQ Reads, SheReads/The Stacks, Publishers Lunch
With a brash and stylish voice that implicates and confronts the reader, Emma Copley Eisenberg wades into the contradictions, joys, and violence of a modern world shaped by looking and watching, examining how our hungers can both hijack and crack open our lives.
In the title story, a young girl looks to a group of fat women at her local pool to teach her about her changing body. In “Swiffer Girl,” a woman agrees to try for a baby with her partner, only to suddenly find herself haunted by the viral sex video that made the rounds during high school—a video indelibly tied to her own sense of self. In other stories, an obscure fat makeup vlogger’s strange friendship with a middle schooler forces her to reflect on her past life at a toxic beauty startup, a boomer retiree tries to understand her nonbinary child’s gender and polyamory, and a trans librarian takes a job as assistant to a famous science fiction writer only to find himself screening hookups on his octogenarian employer’s behalf.
For better or for worse, these stories counsel, none of us can leave our bodies behind: they remind us what it is to be alive. As the characters in Fat Swim dance into and out of each other’s lives—and through and around Philadelphia—they seek connections and experiences that remind them of that fact, culminating in a reality-bending, tour de force finale, “Camp Sensation.” Eisenberg, whose fiction “should be studied by every contemporary author as the finest departure from the fatphobic hellscape of fiction that exists” (Electric Literature), has a singular vision, and Fat Swim is her most incisive and provocative work yet.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The protagonists of this glittering story collection from Eisenberg (Housemates) grapple with the messiness of desire and their relationship to their bodies as queer and fat people. In the title story, eight-year-old Alice longs to join the fat ladies who gather weekly at a public pool she watches from her window. When she finally sneaks out to join them one day, she's comforted by their openness compared to her stifling mother. In "Beauty," a lonely woman named Marion posts reels of herself applying makeup, from contouring like drag star Divine to looks that make her appear thinner or fatter. Two intriguing plotlines ensue, as Marion accepts payments from a fan for private content and reveals that she's been bought out from a beauty company she cofounded after she gained weight. Jules, the trans narrator of the excellent "Lanternfly," works as an assistant for famous elderly gay writer Rob, and feels sad about being tasked with helping Rob find hookups via Grindr, given that Jules wants Rob to want him. Some entries feel underdeveloped, more like sketches or impressions, but stories such as "Beauty" succeed at capturing the effects of isolation, as Marion remembers how she once would "emerge like a mole into daylight." There's plenty to admire in these offbeat tales.
