Fat Swim
Fiction
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Fat Swim
Pre-order Now for £15.09
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About this listen
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026: Playboy, Literary Hub, Debutiful, LGBTQ Reads, SheReads/The Stacks
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.
Critic reviews
“Emma Copley Eisenberg is attuned to every beautiful, terrible human thing: desire, shame, sensation, connection. Fat Swim is a lush, radical meditation on the body’s pleasure and potential.”—Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
“These are some of the best short stories I’ve read in a long time—vivid, surprising, and pin-sharp. Emma Copley Eisenberg is a phenomenal talent. Buy this collection and thank me later.”—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love
“Absolutely everything I ever imagined for the future of American fiction . . . These interconnected stories blitzed my brain and gut.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division
“Spiky, acerbic, and utterly addictive . . . a book as provocative as it is lush, traversing everything from toxic beauty startups to viral sex tapes.”—Playboy
“I can’t stop thinking about these stories. Emma Copley Eisenberg is one of the most interesting and observant young fiction writers on the scene.”—Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
“Eisenberg has a spooky talent for inhabiting the minds of completely disparate people. All the narrators are funny, wise, and heartbreaking, and know how to tell a quick, gripping story.”—Torrey Peters, author of Stag Dance
“Funny, mordant, and tender all at once—this is the rare book that exuberantly inhabits the human body, in all its grossness and glory.”—Rachel Khong, author of My Dear You
“I loved these stories—funny and sad and deeply resonant.”—Marcy Dermansky, author of Hot Air
“Glittering . . . There’s plenty to admire in these offbeat tales.”—Publishers Weekly
“Dynamic . . . [Eisenberg’s] bold, vivid stories will capture the reader’s attention.”—Booklist
“These are some of the best short stories I’ve read in a long time—vivid, surprising, and pin-sharp. Emma Copley Eisenberg is a phenomenal talent. Buy this collection and thank me later.”—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love
“Absolutely everything I ever imagined for the future of American fiction . . . These interconnected stories blitzed my brain and gut.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division
“Spiky, acerbic, and utterly addictive . . . a book as provocative as it is lush, traversing everything from toxic beauty startups to viral sex tapes.”—Playboy
“I can’t stop thinking about these stories. Emma Copley Eisenberg is one of the most interesting and observant young fiction writers on the scene.”—Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
“Eisenberg has a spooky talent for inhabiting the minds of completely disparate people. All the narrators are funny, wise, and heartbreaking, and know how to tell a quick, gripping story.”—Torrey Peters, author of Stag Dance
“Funny, mordant, and tender all at once—this is the rare book that exuberantly inhabits the human body, in all its grossness and glory.”—Rachel Khong, author of My Dear You
“I loved these stories—funny and sad and deeply resonant.”—Marcy Dermansky, author of Hot Air
“Glittering . . . There’s plenty to admire in these offbeat tales.”—Publishers Weekly
“Dynamic . . . [Eisenberg’s] bold, vivid stories will capture the reader’s attention.”—Booklist
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