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Body Friend
A potent novel about chronic illness and the circular nature of recovery-shortlisted for the major Australian literary award The Stella Prize.
In the wake of a major operation, a twenty-eight-year-old woman with chronic illness has twelve weeks to heal, or rather, to acclimate to her new body and prepare herself to leave the routines, comforts, and interiority of her convalescence. In the hydrotherapy pool, she meets Frida, a young woman who looks strikingly similar to her and is also in a state of recovery. But Frida sees her chronic illness as something to overcome and her body as something to control. She adores the pool and pushes the narrator and herself toward an active life, relentlessly pursuing the prevailing narrative of illness followed by recovery.
But the narrator also happens upon Sylvia, another young, convalescing woman, resting on a bench in a nearby park, which the narrator frequents on the days she is too ill to swim. Sylvia understands her body and the narrator's in a different way, gently encouraging her to rest, to perceive illness as something happening to her, but which does not define her.
Throughout the narrator's recovery, these women shadow, overlap, mirror, and complicate one another, and what begins as two seemingly undemanding friendships is challenged by what each woman asks of the narrator, of themselves, and of their bodies.
In the wake of a major operation, a twenty-eight-year-old woman with chronic illness has twelve weeks to heal, or rather, to acclimate to her new body and prepare herself to leave the routines, comforts, and interiority of her convalescence. In the hydrotherapy pool, she meets Frida, a young woman who looks strikingly similar to her and is also in a state of recovery. But Frida sees her chronic illness as something to overcome and her body as something to control. She adores the pool and pushes the narrator and herself toward an active life, relentlessly pursuing the prevailing narrative of illness followed by recovery.
But the narrator also happens upon Sylvia, another young, convalescing woman, resting on a bench in a nearby park, which the narrator frequents on the days she is too ill to swim. Sylvia understands her body and the narrator's in a different way, gently encouraging her to rest, to perceive illness as something happening to her, but which does not define her.
Throughout the narrator's recovery, these women shadow, overlap, mirror, and complicate one another, and what begins as two seemingly undemanding friendships is challenged by what each woman asks of the narrator, of themselves, and of their bodies.
267 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2023
76 people are currently reading
6622 people want to read
About the author
Katherine Brabon
6 books109 followersKatherine Brabon was born in Melbourne in 1987 and grew up in Woodend, Victoria. The Memory Artist is her first novel and won the 2016 Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 224 reviews
May 29, 2023
I’ve never read a book of such interiority that is still very much and completely of the body. Chronic illnesses deny linear narratives and Brabon uses this to create circular and repeating patterns. She utilises concepts of the double and the mirroring of self to situate her protagonist in times of fluidity and times of stagnation. Post-surgery our protagonist is recuperating and her pain is ever present. The spectres of strength (Frida) and rest (Sylvia) haunt the book mostly without menace. Frida Kahlo and Sylvia Plath knew pain and art intimately and their spirit is here. I love Brabon’s prose, she’s a superb and beautiful writer. Here it rings clean and clear and allows you to be in your head and completely in your body.
April 3, 2024
***Longlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize***
***04.April.2024 Shortlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize***
"It is difficult sometimes to perceive what you are for a person, when for you they are so much."
Pain is a strange thing. As sufferers of chronic pain will know, it is all encompassing and permeates every single area of your life. When you're having a good day, you don't take it for granted. And when you're having a bad day...well, the lows are very low. As chronic pain sufferers also know, unless an illness can actually be "seen", the definition and living of it with every moment has a tangible effect on how the sufferer somehow manages to live it. How other people view them. As the experience tends to be diagnosis, treatment, healing. The assumption being that once the healing process is over (however long that may take), all is well again. However, that it so far from the truth. Chronic illness is not linear.
Our unnamed protagonist has an autoimmune disease, resulting in major orthopedic surgery to have the parts of her body that were no longer working replaced. As part of her healing, she joins a local hydrotherapy class to try to get her body to move again. Which is where she meets Frida.
Swimming, first in the hydrotherapy pool at the hospital, then at various swimming pools across the inner city, to finally braving the pool baths in the open sea, our protagonist pushes her body and mind beyond its limits. Faithfully following Frida's example, as Frida seems to have her life and pain under control. The control somehow seeming to symbolize that perhaps the illness causing her body to attack itself, and therefore her bones and joints, will somehow be circumvented if she just keeps swimming.
Burning herself out from the incessant swimming and the stern, acerbic lifestyle of Frida, she instead decides to take walks in the local park. Land versus water. Getting used to moving her body in a medium which has all the heaviness that land locked creatures deal with. On one of her walks, she meets Sylvia. By chance, Sylvia also suffers from chronic illness for which there is no cure. However, her approach to "controlling" her illness is more inward, more sedate. Just as Frida swims lap after lap daily beyond exhaustion, Sylvia approaches healing as being just that. Time to pause and reflect. Not push the body or mind beyond any boundaries. To sit and contemplate. To be.
Our narrator shares very private moments and a very real and deep friendship with both women. Aligning her healing style with theirs. When with Frida, she is unstoppable and unbeatable, able to push through pain boundaries that she perhaps shouldn't. With Sylvia, she allows herself to not have to do anything more than sit on the sunlit balcony with a coffee. Not worrying about the return to work and "real" life, but to take this opportunity to listen to her body, her pain, and rest.
Two very different approaches to pain and healing. Two very different friendships. Both more than a bit jealous when hearing of the other. Feeling that their way is the correct way to betterment and living with their condition. Which somewhat confuses our narrator, as she is a completely different person depending on whether it's Frida or Sylvia that she is spending more time with. Both friends being left on the sideline for weeks at a time.
The duality of herself and her relationship to her body and pain and healing is very much reflected by her two friendships. It's an interesting place to be in, and I'm sure most of us will have been in a similar situation at some point.
"I was not looking for someone just like me. I did not seek the doppelgänger, that cultural obsession. Meeting your likeness is said to be an omen; the world only has room for one of you. My fascination with the pool woman was not a vanity. I need to stress this. It was maybe an exercise in self knowledge."
The story shows how much we tend to mirror those who mean something to us. How we aspire to be like them and follow their cues. And most importantly it shows how most of us have such a difficult relationship with our bodies, especially when they don't work as they should. That we fight against that which we cannot control, and feel frustration at that which we cannot change.
There's an ebb and flow to the writing style, much like the sea baths in which our protagonist either swims in or longs to swim in. So much of inner lives and pain ebb and flow with the change in seasons, the change in light. But often we're too well to ever notice this.
This book has left such a deep impression on me. The quiet introspection of it and deep honesty of how much we struggle within ourselves, especially when dealing with life changing events. I'm unsure how much - if any - of this novel is related to the Author's own experiences. It's so deeply moving and so incredibly intimate that I can't help but feel she has first hand knowledge of what she's written about.
Please have a listen to Katherine Brabon speaking about her book and chronic illness and how it impacts women:
https://stella.org.au/katherine-brabo...
I'm really pleased this has made the longlist and am quietly confident that it will make the shortlist (or more) of this year's Stella Prize.
Book 3 of my Stella Prize 2024 reading longlist.
***04.April.2024 Shortlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize***
"It is difficult sometimes to perceive what you are for a person, when for you they are so much."
Pain is a strange thing. As sufferers of chronic pain will know, it is all encompassing and permeates every single area of your life. When you're having a good day, you don't take it for granted. And when you're having a bad day...well, the lows are very low. As chronic pain sufferers also know, unless an illness can actually be "seen", the definition and living of it with every moment has a tangible effect on how the sufferer somehow manages to live it. How other people view them. As the experience tends to be diagnosis, treatment, healing. The assumption being that once the healing process is over (however long that may take), all is well again. However, that it so far from the truth. Chronic illness is not linear.
Our unnamed protagonist has an autoimmune disease, resulting in major orthopedic surgery to have the parts of her body that were no longer working replaced. As part of her healing, she joins a local hydrotherapy class to try to get her body to move again. Which is where she meets Frida.
Swimming, first in the hydrotherapy pool at the hospital, then at various swimming pools across the inner city, to finally braving the pool baths in the open sea, our protagonist pushes her body and mind beyond its limits. Faithfully following Frida's example, as Frida seems to have her life and pain under control. The control somehow seeming to symbolize that perhaps the illness causing her body to attack itself, and therefore her bones and joints, will somehow be circumvented if she just keeps swimming.
Burning herself out from the incessant swimming and the stern, acerbic lifestyle of Frida, she instead decides to take walks in the local park. Land versus water. Getting used to moving her body in a medium which has all the heaviness that land locked creatures deal with. On one of her walks, she meets Sylvia. By chance, Sylvia also suffers from chronic illness for which there is no cure. However, her approach to "controlling" her illness is more inward, more sedate. Just as Frida swims lap after lap daily beyond exhaustion, Sylvia approaches healing as being just that. Time to pause and reflect. Not push the body or mind beyond any boundaries. To sit and contemplate. To be.
Our narrator shares very private moments and a very real and deep friendship with both women. Aligning her healing style with theirs. When with Frida, she is unstoppable and unbeatable, able to push through pain boundaries that she perhaps shouldn't. With Sylvia, she allows herself to not have to do anything more than sit on the sunlit balcony with a coffee. Not worrying about the return to work and "real" life, but to take this opportunity to listen to her body, her pain, and rest.
Two very different approaches to pain and healing. Two very different friendships. Both more than a bit jealous when hearing of the other. Feeling that their way is the correct way to betterment and living with their condition. Which somewhat confuses our narrator, as she is a completely different person depending on whether it's Frida or Sylvia that she is spending more time with. Both friends being left on the sideline for weeks at a time.
The duality of herself and her relationship to her body and pain and healing is very much reflected by her two friendships. It's an interesting place to be in, and I'm sure most of us will have been in a similar situation at some point.
"I was not looking for someone just like me. I did not seek the doppelgänger, that cultural obsession. Meeting your likeness is said to be an omen; the world only has room for one of you. My fascination with the pool woman was not a vanity. I need to stress this. It was maybe an exercise in self knowledge."
The story shows how much we tend to mirror those who mean something to us. How we aspire to be like them and follow their cues. And most importantly it shows how most of us have such a difficult relationship with our bodies, especially when they don't work as they should. That we fight against that which we cannot control, and feel frustration at that which we cannot change.
There's an ebb and flow to the writing style, much like the sea baths in which our protagonist either swims in or longs to swim in. So much of inner lives and pain ebb and flow with the change in seasons, the change in light. But often we're too well to ever notice this.
This book has left such a deep impression on me. The quiet introspection of it and deep honesty of how much we struggle within ourselves, especially when dealing with life changing events. I'm unsure how much - if any - of this novel is related to the Author's own experiences. It's so deeply moving and so incredibly intimate that I can't help but feel she has first hand knowledge of what she's written about.
Please have a listen to Katherine Brabon speaking about her book and chronic illness and how it impacts women:
https://stella.org.au/katherine-brabo...
I'm really pleased this has made the longlist and am quietly confident that it will make the shortlist (or more) of this year's Stella Prize.
Book 3 of my Stella Prize 2024 reading longlist.
September 12, 2023
As a person who lives in Melbourne and has chronic illnesses, I found a resonance and comfort in this.
The “story” is repetitive and cyclical, just like chronic illness is. With her “friends” frida and Sylvia representing rest and active therapy.
The writing is lovely and I enjoyed the introspective experience of living with health conditions.
The “story” is repetitive and cyclical, just like chronic illness is. With her “friends” frida and Sylvia representing rest and active therapy.
The writing is lovely and I enjoyed the introspective experience of living with health conditions.
December 6, 2023
Holy moly cannoli. The hardest 5* ever maybe? Absolutely fucking phenomenal. Why this isn’t rated higher is beyond me. Of course I’m too sick to write anything more right now 🤕
February 3, 2024
Lyrical and interior but also visceral and embodied — so so phenomenal, I knew from the moment I read the blurb that it would be a new favourite. Frida and Sylvia will stay with me for a long time.
—
“This is repetitive, but it was and is true—the body and these feelings are just that repetitive. We become bored with it, the body and its demands, frustrated by what it needs again when all it needs is the same good again and again, and more.”
“Pain is incredibly singular. A disease of autoimmunity is you and you, you towards you, you against you, you with you, you upon you, you cannot extricate yourself, you cannot skin yourself off yourself —there is no such aftermath as a bodily divorce.”
“‘You are obsessed with goodness,’ said Sylvia, stirring and stirring her tea. ‘There are other ways to be, other contingencies of self.’”
“There was no real narrative, no peak or depth in the sameness of each day in pain. A cyclical disease does not allow sufficient linearity or propulsion. I wanted, in other words, to make something as inconstant as my self and body.”
“Metaphors proliferate as I write, I can't help myself. I can't help my self. The self as cause and creator.”
“Often we deny the body its story. We don't believe it or we ignore it, because the body does not use words. We ignore the body because sometimes we don't even know what it is saying, or we choose not to listen to its needs, this miraculous, silent carapace.”
“I tried this, of course, going to massage therapists and herbal doctors, each time with the sense that I was kneeling again at the altar of narrative, praying for that good outcome.”
“There are many thresholds, I'm learning, with a body that is bad and then good and then bad again.”
—
“This is repetitive, but it was and is true—the body and these feelings are just that repetitive. We become bored with it, the body and its demands, frustrated by what it needs again when all it needs is the same good again and again, and more.”
“Pain is incredibly singular. A disease of autoimmunity is you and you, you towards you, you against you, you with you, you upon you, you cannot extricate yourself, you cannot skin yourself off yourself —there is no such aftermath as a bodily divorce.”
“‘You are obsessed with goodness,’ said Sylvia, stirring and stirring her tea. ‘There are other ways to be, other contingencies of self.’”
“There was no real narrative, no peak or depth in the sameness of each day in pain. A cyclical disease does not allow sufficient linearity or propulsion. I wanted, in other words, to make something as inconstant as my self and body.”
“Metaphors proliferate as I write, I can't help myself. I can't help my self. The self as cause and creator.”
“Often we deny the body its story. We don't believe it or we ignore it, because the body does not use words. We ignore the body because sometimes we don't even know what it is saying, or we choose not to listen to its needs, this miraculous, silent carapace.”
“I tried this, of course, going to massage therapists and herbal doctors, each time with the sense that I was kneeling again at the altar of narrative, praying for that good outcome.”
“There are many thresholds, I'm learning, with a body that is bad and then good and then bad again.”
September 4, 2023
Body Friend by Katherine Brabon is a quiet, very interior book. Delivered in a first person narrative it is almost a monologue at times of a young woman with a chronic illness recovering from hip surgery. The unnamed narrator’s voice is pondering and rambling. She delivers long passages about her thoughts and experiences meeting two different woman during her recovery. These friendships with women also experiencing chronic conditions help her make sense of her place in the world.
At times it felt less like fiction and more like an essay. There was lots of explaining about pain and illness coming across as intellectual musings. I found the writing style to be quite detached and flat which I think actually worked for the type of book this was.
The plot is lean though with the narrator describing her life as she is about to have the surgery then what her recovery is like including meeting Frida through hydrotherapy sessions and swims in public pools and Sylvia at a local park. These two women represent different facets of the narrators life and recovery with one more focused on being active (Frida) and the other focussed more on rest and solitude (Sylvia).
The two personalities cause the narrator to bounce between recovery and relapse. It’s a really interesting way of presenting chronic illness and is a story very much focussed on the body. You can tell very clearly that the topic of chronic illness comes from a place of understanding and truth for the author which I very much appreciated.
Overall I found Body Friend a really interesting book to read but it didn’t totally grab me with its plot. The author is very talented I just didn’t fully engage with the plot this time around. I'd still recommend it if the topic interests you as the writing is very good.
Thank you to @ultimopress for my #gifted copy.
At times it felt less like fiction and more like an essay. There was lots of explaining about pain and illness coming across as intellectual musings. I found the writing style to be quite detached and flat which I think actually worked for the type of book this was.
The plot is lean though with the narrator describing her life as she is about to have the surgery then what her recovery is like including meeting Frida through hydrotherapy sessions and swims in public pools and Sylvia at a local park. These two women represent different facets of the narrators life and recovery with one more focused on being active (Frida) and the other focussed more on rest and solitude (Sylvia).
The two personalities cause the narrator to bounce between recovery and relapse. It’s a really interesting way of presenting chronic illness and is a story very much focussed on the body. You can tell very clearly that the topic of chronic illness comes from a place of understanding and truth for the author which I very much appreciated.
Overall I found Body Friend a really interesting book to read but it didn’t totally grab me with its plot. The author is very talented I just didn’t fully engage with the plot this time around. I'd still recommend it if the topic interests you as the writing is very good.
Thank you to @ultimopress for my #gifted copy.
December 24, 2023
A beautiful book that flowed over me like the water it talks so fondly about. The novel follows three main characters, an unnamed narrator who has an unspecified autoimmune disease and then two friends, Frieda and Sylvia, who share in her chronic pain. Frieda pushes her to be more active, present and trusting her body through the act of swimming while Sylvia encourages our narrator to give in to rest and restoration, two modes of being I can and have related to many times. As an avid swimmer all the passages about the relationship to water and self really resonated but in addition to that the explorations of friendships blossoming in adulthood and how others can influence our reflections on self, how we inhabit our bodies, and who we want to be, were truly beautiful. While I am someone who is fortunate enough not to suffer from chronic pain, the passages about pain, our relationship to it, and how it reflects our relationship to our body and our feelings within it, resonated deeply and it was a relationship I'd never seen put to words before.
The friendships oscillated between condescendingly maternal and beautifully caring and so I could understand our narrator getting lost in the attention of her new friends, using their single mindedness to find her own truth.
A beautiful book that will probably become another book trophy for the year!
The friendships oscillated between condescendingly maternal and beautifully caring and so I could understand our narrator getting lost in the attention of her new friends, using their single mindedness to find her own truth.
A beautiful book that will probably become another book trophy for the year!
August 1, 2025
meditative and quietly impactful depiction of chronic pain. body friend follows our unnamed narrator’s recovery after an operation on her leg, mirroring her with 2 other characters representing rest and activity. was super intrigued by the push and pull of those two friendships and how they impacted the narrators feelings about her body. the writing was soft and flowed along and was such a great representation of the limitations of language when describing pain. made me want to go for a swim and for a walk.
really loved aysegul savas’s blurb on the front - i feel like it sums things up nicely: "At once a feverish investigation of the body's limits and a hypnotic account of city walks, swimming, and friendship. I loved the intimacy of these pages.”
really loved aysegul savas’s blurb on the front - i feel like it sums things up nicely: "At once a feverish investigation of the body's limits and a hypnotic account of city walks, swimming, and friendship. I loved the intimacy of these pages.”
January 30, 2024
4.5
This was utterly brilliant and beautiful and I’ve never come across something so becoming. A story of learning, friendship, similarities, and differences. Body, mind and soul !!!! Our bodies are amazing. Here’s to balance, nourishment, fulfilment and listening to our bodies in 2024!!!!
This was utterly brilliant and beautiful and I’ve never come across something so becoming. A story of learning, friendship, similarities, and differences. Body, mind and soul !!!! Our bodies are amazing. Here’s to balance, nourishment, fulfilment and listening to our bodies in 2024!!!!
April 11, 2024
Very interesting premise. I can understand why it resonated with so many readers. Overall though I found it a bit too quiet and introspective for me to get much enjoyment out of reading it
September 29, 2023
This book utterly entranced me. It is written with such wisdom and beauty, and with insight only gained through the experience of living with chronic illness and pain. Brabon writes so honestly and vulnerably, it felt like an honour to be allowed to know her thoughts about her body and her relationship with movement and rest. I felt incredibly seen and validated reading this book. I recommend it to anyone with chronic illness, and to their loved ones. A truly beautiful piece of work.
December 15, 2023
“pain is incredibly singular. a disease of autoimmunity is you and you, you towards you, you against you, you with you, you upon you, you cannot extricate yourself, you cannot skin yourself off yourself—there is no such aftermath as a bodily divorce.”
so special and reassuring to see experiences of chronic illnesses being explored like this
so special and reassuring to see experiences of chronic illnesses being explored like this
January 9, 2024
A beautiful, slow meditation on chronic illness and the 'selves' it creates.
"It was twenty-three degrees, people wore t-shirts or singlets or thin dresses, the night was a long pink sentence with a pleasant cadence that stops just when it should."
"It was twenty-three degrees, people wore t-shirts or singlets or thin dresses, the night was a long pink sentence with a pleasant cadence that stops just when it should."
June 16, 2025
☆☆.75
“There is an argument that some things are beyond language, another that words are our only option.”
“There is an argument that some things are beyond language, another that words are our only option.”
April 6, 2024
2024 Stella Prize Longlist
Well written, an interesting look at dealing with how to heal, the dichotomy between rest and repetitive exercise- represented by two friends.
The mental challenges of both, especially dealing with guilty feelings of internalised ableism.
Society's treatment of people with disabilities is hardly covered except by a single encouraging, if patronising, comment from a lady at the pool. These women seem completely invisible to other people in the city they are in. Anyone with a visible disability knows about being invisible but that there are few interactions with other complete strangers pulled me out of the story. I have a visible disability and I can hardly move in the community without some complete stranger approaching me, usually out of kindness but sometimes it's a quite weird interaction ie "I'll pray for you"....
Pleased that I listened to the audiobook (x1.25), the narration was well done.
It has made me interesting to listen to another of the author's books on audio, The Memory Artist.
A good one for the Stella longlist but I'm not sure it will make the shortlist.
Well written, an interesting look at dealing with how to heal, the dichotomy between rest and repetitive exercise- represented by two friends.
The mental challenges of both, especially dealing with guilty feelings of internalised ableism.
Society's treatment of people with disabilities is hardly covered except by a single encouraging, if patronising, comment from a lady at the pool. These women seem completely invisible to other people in the city they are in. Anyone with a visible disability knows about being invisible but that there are few interactions with other complete strangers pulled me out of the story. I have a visible disability and I can hardly move in the community without some complete stranger approaching me, usually out of kindness but sometimes it's a quite weird interaction ie "I'll pray for you"....
Pleased that I listened to the audiobook (x1.25), the narration was well done.
It has made me interesting to listen to another of the author's books on audio, The Memory Artist.
A good one for the Stella longlist but I'm not sure it will make the shortlist.
August 26, 2024
“Body Friend: A Novel” (BFAN) is by Australian author Katherine Brabon.
BFAN is less of a novel but rather a philosophy of living with and experiencing chronic pain told from the perspective of the 30-something unnamed narrator (who has is recovering from a hip replacement due to lifelong issues with an autoimmune disorder).
Throughout the book the narrator talks with her two “friends” Frida and Sylvia, but it is clear that these are merely metaphors of how she deals with her recovery. Frida - about the physical movement and exercise and the desire to improve; Sylvia - about the mental struggle and the dangers of withdrawing from everyone and everything and doing nothing because you are your body and your body is pain so why fight against it.
I struggled with this book.
It is full of random metaphors that make little to no sense. The prose is pretentious to the point that Brabon sounds like she is trying too hard to deliver something profoundly intellectual. Unfortunately for me it was, at best, repetitive and dull or, at worst, incoherent psycho-babble.
The concept that Brabon has is a good one but unfortunately she takes 245 pages to say what could have been more succinctly delivered in the form of a 100 page essay.
BFAN is about chronic pain but unfortunately I just found it chronically painful and it gets 2.5 shiny new hips out of 5.
BFAN is less of a novel but rather a philosophy of living with and experiencing chronic pain told from the perspective of the 30-something unnamed narrator (who has is recovering from a hip replacement due to lifelong issues with an autoimmune disorder).
Throughout the book the narrator talks with her two “friends” Frida and Sylvia, but it is clear that these are merely metaphors of how she deals with her recovery. Frida - about the physical movement and exercise and the desire to improve; Sylvia - about the mental struggle and the dangers of withdrawing from everyone and everything and doing nothing because you are your body and your body is pain so why fight against it.
I struggled with this book.
It is full of random metaphors that make little to no sense. The prose is pretentious to the point that Brabon sounds like she is trying too hard to deliver something profoundly intellectual. Unfortunately for me it was, at best, repetitive and dull or, at worst, incoherent psycho-babble.
The concept that Brabon has is a good one but unfortunately she takes 245 pages to say what could have been more succinctly delivered in the form of a 100 page essay.
BFAN is about chronic pain but unfortunately I just found it chronically painful and it gets 2.5 shiny new hips out of 5.
January 31, 2024
I resonated with this book so much and felt so comforted as if it was hugging me. This book portrays chronic illness and pain in a way that took the words right out of my mouth as someone with chronic pain. Katherine portrayed the events and periods of pain in a clever way through Frida and Sylvia. Being torn between putting pressure on yourself to recovery and letting yourself rest and feel the guilt for it. This book was reminder to take care of myself but also not let my chronic pain and injury get the best of me. Thank you Katherine.
January 13, 2024
As someone who has struggled with chronic pain for most of my 20s, this book was amazing. No one talks about it. It provided me with so much reassurance you aren’t alone.
Feelings resonated so strongly with me e.g. how pain is unseen, how to navigate it with partners/family/friends/work, and the power of water.
I’ll take so many quotes with me - thank you!!
Feelings resonated so strongly with me e.g. how pain is unseen, how to navigate it with partners/family/friends/work, and the power of water.
I’ll take so many quotes with me - thank you!!
September 4, 2023
Beguiling, dreamlike, slightly Gothic. Murmurs of Virginia Woolf. An intriguing soft nightmare of chronic ill health that resonated deeply with me.
March 20, 2024
This is the best thing I've read about chronic pain and illness in a fictional form. But also just about bodies in general. Phenomenal.
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June 8, 2024- thanks to @ultimopress for #gifted copy of this book in exchange for an honest review
I cannot say I was surprised when Body Friend was longlisted and then shortlisted for the Stella Prize. There is something incredibly poignant and evocative about the musings and observations of a very particular unnamed main character that provided me with some invaluable food for thought.
I guess one could say that there are plenty of novels out there, old and new, that delve into pain, whether emotional, mental or physical. Yet, I do not recall reading anything similar to Body Friend, where the exploration of physical pain and its consequences, and the relationship between bodies living through unimaginable pain is conceived from such nuanced perspectives.
Brabon achieved a level of depth that caught me by surprise, especially because I am not personally a fan of unnamed protagonists. However, the nameless approach enabled Brabon to give her main character a level of anonymity and relatability that is seldom attained. I believe this creative decision works really well because it contrasts with characters like Frida and Sylvia, for whom the experience of chronic illness is somehow easily definable compared to that of the protagonist.
Through the secondary characters, the author toys with the nature of our relationship to pain. We all exist between the realm of the two extremes of the passive and the active when it comes to the body's experience of pain. Friday and Sylvia represent two of the infinite possibilities by creating chaos in the protagonist's psyche while she is trying to understand where she sits in the full spectrum of the experience; Brabon brings to the surface the question of whether or not deciding how we handle our pain is even possible.
Overall, Body Friend is an equally sharp and gentle exploration of an inescapable human experience that left me in a state of hunger for more stories like this one. I would recommend it to readers who are looking for and can appreciate a passive and plotless novel.
I cannot say I was surprised when Body Friend was longlisted and then shortlisted for the Stella Prize. There is something incredibly poignant and evocative about the musings and observations of a very particular unnamed main character that provided me with some invaluable food for thought.
I guess one could say that there are plenty of novels out there, old and new, that delve into pain, whether emotional, mental or physical. Yet, I do not recall reading anything similar to Body Friend, where the exploration of physical pain and its consequences, and the relationship between bodies living through unimaginable pain is conceived from such nuanced perspectives.
Brabon achieved a level of depth that caught me by surprise, especially because I am not personally a fan of unnamed protagonists. However, the nameless approach enabled Brabon to give her main character a level of anonymity and relatability that is seldom attained. I believe this creative decision works really well because it contrasts with characters like Frida and Sylvia, for whom the experience of chronic illness is somehow easily definable compared to that of the protagonist.
Through the secondary characters, the author toys with the nature of our relationship to pain. We all exist between the realm of the two extremes of the passive and the active when it comes to the body's experience of pain. Friday and Sylvia represent two of the infinite possibilities by creating chaos in the protagonist's psyche while she is trying to understand where she sits in the full spectrum of the experience; Brabon brings to the surface the question of whether or not deciding how we handle our pain is even possible.
Overall, Body Friend is an equally sharp and gentle exploration of an inescapable human experience that left me in a state of hunger for more stories like this one. I would recommend it to readers who are looking for and can appreciate a passive and plotless novel.
March 31, 2024
Stella Prize Longlist 2024
Body Friend is a slow, beautifully written, deliberate book which explores the months (some time ago) following an operation and subsequent therapy. The illness, like the narrator, is never named, "A diagnosis, like metaphor, was essential for others - to explain how we felt and elicit a medical response or an attempt at empathy," it is present on every page and we soon learn that it is aggressive and tenacious.
It is following this surgical procedure, five years earlier, that our narrator met two women within a few weeks of each other. Two women she saw regularly but always separately. Two women who are polar opposites but reflect the chronic pain and suffering of the narrator. The reader is told that the first, Frida "entered my life, though we were such likenesses of one another, something internally similar, that she was already familiar to me." Frida finds strength in activity, especially swimming. While Sylvia, the second woman, encourages rest, is present when our narrator can no longer commit to the physical therapy, encourages complaining. Two contradictory allies that help our narrator endure.
This is a fascinating novel. The friends namesakes, Frida (Kahlo) and Sylvia (Plath), along with other artists, are mentioned in the novel. There is so much to think about, so much to discuss. This author has been on my to read list for sometime, I must read her back catalogue.
Body Friend is a slow, beautifully written, deliberate book which explores the months (some time ago) following an operation and subsequent therapy. The illness, like the narrator, is never named, "A diagnosis, like metaphor, was essential for others - to explain how we felt and elicit a medical response or an attempt at empathy," it is present on every page and we soon learn that it is aggressive and tenacious.
It is following this surgical procedure, five years earlier, that our narrator met two women within a few weeks of each other. Two women she saw regularly but always separately. Two women who are polar opposites but reflect the chronic pain and suffering of the narrator. The reader is told that the first, Frida "entered my life, though we were such likenesses of one another, something internally similar, that she was already familiar to me." Frida finds strength in activity, especially swimming. While Sylvia, the second woman, encourages rest, is present when our narrator can no longer commit to the physical therapy, encourages complaining. Two contradictory allies that help our narrator endure.
This is a fascinating novel. The friends namesakes, Frida (Kahlo) and Sylvia (Plath), along with other artists, are mentioned in the novel. There is so much to think about, so much to discuss. This author has been on my to read list for sometime, I must read her back catalogue.
October 7, 2024
I enjoyed this a lot more than I was expecting! A really well put together reflection on what it is like to live with chronic illness, constantly being pulled between the desire to get out and live a normal life, or to rot at home.
I think it did a good job at showing there is a time and place for both, especially as chronic illness can be so cyclical. I also liked that female friendships - with all their ups and downs - were the focus. Weirdly after trying Everyone I Know is Dying I reflected on this and think Body Friend was just more up my alley, but think they complement each other well.
I think it did a good job at showing there is a time and place for both, especially as chronic illness can be so cyclical. I also liked that female friendships - with all their ups and downs - were the focus. Weirdly after trying Everyone I Know is Dying I reflected on this and think Body Friend was just more up my alley, but think they complement each other well.
October 2, 2025
Insightful writing about chronic pain. Felt more like a memoir or personal essay than a novel, and reminded me a bit of Leslie Jamison. Read in preparation for an event with the author this weekend. Here are a few quotes I really enjoyed:
“Often when we meet someone, we have to, or feel we must, begin the task of creating ourselves yet again, offering a narrative that presents us as we hope to appear, perhaps as we hope we are.”
“There are gentle and loving ways of ignoring, just as there are of acknowledging.”
“Often when we meet someone, we have to, or feel we must, begin the task of creating ourselves yet again, offering a narrative that presents us as we hope to appear, perhaps as we hope we are.”
“There are gentle and loving ways of ignoring, just as there are of acknowledging.”
May 5, 2025
Managed to read this at exactly the right time in my life.
December 31, 2023
this was so moving/ arresting/ validating. I have an autoimmune sitch too and Brabon so honestly captures the singularity of pain and the resignation/ acceptance that the pain is endless and a 4lifer. I also think people who have struggled with mental health will see parallels with this narrative and find comfort in Body Friend too! I really loved Brabon's reflections on painkillers and the 'dilemma of identity'.. that really resonated with me.
basically-- the girls that get it, get it. also, this passage had me gagged !!!!!!!! >>>
"illness, when it is chronic, severs these usual links to narrative- we don't have an end point, but we also don't have a moment of transformation... there is beginning after beginning and there is no resolution, no end or aftermath. I must swim and swim and swim and each time it is all over again".
basically-- the girls that get it, get it. also, this passage had me gagged !!!!!!!! >>>
"illness, when it is chronic, severs these usual links to narrative- we don't have an end point, but we also don't have a moment of transformation... there is beginning after beginning and there is no resolution, no end or aftermath. I must swim and swim and swim and each time it is all over again".
July 24, 2024
Wow. Katherine Brabon has made something really special here.
Chronic illness can be such a difficult subject to broach but Brabon does so here with aplomb.
She explores chronic illness in all its guises, the pain, the fatigue, the psychological imprisonment, the guilt, feelings of failure and shortfall. She uses the protagonist's friends and partner as psychic sounding boards. Whilst the partner keeps a fairly background role as the solid baseline to the protagonist's life, the two friends Frida (Kahlo?) and Sylvia (Plath?) to me represented the two sides of illness - maintaining motivation with a "brave face" and plodding on regardless, and stopping, resting and taking time to self-heal.
The writing is very clever and subtle, poetic even in it's description. I really got inside the head of the unnamed protagonist. As the wife of someone with chronic illness and a health care worker, this book really spoke to me in ways that others have not.
I feel also it could have worked equally well as a non-fiction from a fiction as Katherine has clearly been through what she writes.
An excellent read, highly recommended. I'm so glad I bought my own copy as I will be returning again.
Chronic illness can be such a difficult subject to broach but Brabon does so here with aplomb.
She explores chronic illness in all its guises, the pain, the fatigue, the psychological imprisonment, the guilt, feelings of failure and shortfall. She uses the protagonist's friends and partner as psychic sounding boards. Whilst the partner keeps a fairly background role as the solid baseline to the protagonist's life, the two friends Frida (Kahlo?) and Sylvia (Plath?) to me represented the two sides of illness - maintaining motivation with a "brave face" and plodding on regardless, and stopping, resting and taking time to self-heal.
The writing is very clever and subtle, poetic even in it's description. I really got inside the head of the unnamed protagonist. As the wife of someone with chronic illness and a health care worker, this book really spoke to me in ways that others have not.
I feel also it could have worked equally well as a non-fiction from a fiction as Katherine has clearly been through what she writes.
An excellent read, highly recommended. I'm so glad I bought my own copy as I will be returning again.
October 7, 2023
A beautiful exploration of the phenomenology of pain and what it means to adjust to chronic illness.
In Melbourne, our nameless narrator is recovering from a severe flare up of an autoimmune condition (something akin to rheumatoid arthritis) as she awaits, and then recovers from, surgery.
Katherine Brabon's writing is understated but weaves a powerful meditation on our relationships to our body and the tension between effort and activity versus rest and comfort. This internalised conflict is played out into the protagonist's relationship with two "friends" Frida and Sylvia, who appear to be somewhat inspired by women creatives familiar with the theme of the female body and pain: Frida Kahlo and Sylvia Plath.
The voices of Frida and Sylvia urge rest and action as the solution to health in a cyclical tug of war very familiar to anyone who lives with a condition that causes chronic discomfort. Also familiar: themes of guilt, shame, and the tyranny of the "shoulds" that so many of us living in female bodies feel in relation to our embodied behaviours and actions.
Four and a half stars rather than four because this literary voice is so needed and welcome and unique.
In Melbourne, our nameless narrator is recovering from a severe flare up of an autoimmune condition (something akin to rheumatoid arthritis) as she awaits, and then recovers from, surgery.
Katherine Brabon's writing is understated but weaves a powerful meditation on our relationships to our body and the tension between effort and activity versus rest and comfort. This internalised conflict is played out into the protagonist's relationship with two "friends" Frida and Sylvia, who appear to be somewhat inspired by women creatives familiar with the theme of the female body and pain: Frida Kahlo and Sylvia Plath.
The voices of Frida and Sylvia urge rest and action as the solution to health in a cyclical tug of war very familiar to anyone who lives with a condition that causes chronic discomfort. Also familiar: themes of guilt, shame, and the tyranny of the "shoulds" that so many of us living in female bodies feel in relation to our embodied behaviours and actions.
Four and a half stars rather than four because this literary voice is so needed and welcome and unique.
July 14, 2023
The main character in Body Friend is living with a chronic illness.
This may imply that the book could be maudlin or sullen but Katherine Brabon has a gift for writing that takes the reader into the protagonist’s world in a pace that is gentle and rhythmic. It is not a ‘woe is me’ story. Her protagonist does not ask for sympathy. Rather, we learn that her character has sympathy for others.
Brabon takes the reader on a journey that is also educative. Whilst I recommend this book to all readers, those readers who have little or no understanding of the effects of living with chronic illness are well-advised to read this novel. It could very well change the way you look at, or attempt to rush past random strangers whose slow pace appears to impede your way.
Katherine Brabon’s book is valuable not only for what some readers will learn. Her ability to create short sentences that provide so much detail makes this novel an enlightening and rewarding read for its writing craft.
This may imply that the book could be maudlin or sullen but Katherine Brabon has a gift for writing that takes the reader into the protagonist’s world in a pace that is gentle and rhythmic. It is not a ‘woe is me’ story. Her protagonist does not ask for sympathy. Rather, we learn that her character has sympathy for others.
Brabon takes the reader on a journey that is also educative. Whilst I recommend this book to all readers, those readers who have little or no understanding of the effects of living with chronic illness are well-advised to read this novel. It could very well change the way you look at, or attempt to rush past random strangers whose slow pace appears to impede your way.
Katherine Brabon’s book is valuable not only for what some readers will learn. Her ability to create short sentences that provide so much detail makes this novel an enlightening and rewarding read for its writing craft.
June 7, 2025
Anyone who has experienced chronic or long-term illness will be able to relate to this deeply introspective story. The unnamed narrator meets two “body friends” who are mirrors of herself. Frida and Sylvia are introduced as separate characters, but can be interpreted as the narrator’s personas that help her navigate illness and recovery, with Frida representing the narrator’s desire to be active and push through difficulty, and Sylvia being the narrator’s need for rest and surrender. At one point, Sylvia cautions “don’t split yourself in two,” suggesting that these two parts of the narrator – the resilience and the rest – can coexist and make space for one another, even if they often feel at odds.
Sylvia is inspired by poet Sylvia Plath, who experienced severe mental health struggles that eventually took her life. Her works are quoted occasionally in the novel, and the Sylvia persona has Plath’s way of cutting to the bone with words that are sharp and precise, yet still full of emotion. Frida is inspired by artist Frida Kahlo, who spent most of her life in chronic pain after a bus accident left her with devastating injuries. The Frida persona pushes through pain to become her most vibrant self, and Frida Kahlo did similar as she painted in bed and used pain to motivate and influence her artwork. I think a lot of people who go through body/health trauma find "body friends" - inspiring people who have been through similar trials and help us feel empowered to keep going.
This novel is light on plot and is a character-driven story that takes us deep into the interior of a woman who is reconciling her body’s abilities, desires, and experiences. While readers may find this slow moving, the writing is well crafted and the themes are resonant for anyone who has battled with their health (particularly invisible and chronic illnesses). As a vestibular migraine sufferer and someone who had life derailed by a mysterious illness a few years ago, I felt so seen and understood by Brabon’s exploration of what it means to live in a body that betrays your expectations of it.
Including some quotes below that will stick with me:
“Pain dictates perception dictates capacity.”
“She knew that sometimes what the body demands with its pain is not pills but another body, is care.”
“The moment after the crisis when we say, I am through this, and I am changed. I was sick and now I am better. And here are all the good lessons I learned. So many narratives tell us this, and we can’t relate to it. That’s not the story of what is happening to this body here. It is not adequate for the task. There is beginning after beginning and there is no resolution, no end or aftermath.”
“It will always be hard. There will always be hard times. We have to resist the urge to stop. I’s dangerous, the stopping. A slippery slope.”
“It’s difficult sometimes to perceive what you are for a person, when for you they are so much.”
“I wanted us to do nothing. It was bad and I didn’t know why. Another narrative we have taught ourselves and learned so well: move and do and you will be good.”
“And this is probably how it is: when the condition you have is more a condition you are in, it becomes the condition that you are. In other words, with a case of chronic illness you are in and then out of, communing with and then shunning the world or the social contract, the economic milieu, the structural apparatus. The condition is not a possession given, chosen or had, but a state of being. I could not take it out of me.”
"In naming, we overcome silence.”
“The sick day, at its most benign, offers the ability to act out a longing to return to seclusion, mother and child alone together, the precious time when we are allowed to shut out the world. We turn inwards in what might be a primal act of protection. We don’t need to go anywhere. We are advised not to go outside. She spoke of the sick day with something bordering on reverence.”
“These people who enable the truest expression of ourselves are rare. Maybe we don’t know a person all that well, but in the mirror of them we know ourselves. I’d begun to think I should like to find them all, these other ones, my doubled and tripled and multiplied versions, my internal mirrors.”
“There were days when I didn’t swim. This is obvious, but they were significant to me. On the days when I didn’t swim, I felt less definition in the world. I barely escaped a feeling of failure.”
“When her body first showed signs of the disease, Frida said, she’d hoped to work with it, as though the illness was some feral animal she could tame through hard work and diligence. And so she exercised her body far more than she once had—she emphasised she’d never been an athlete, had never been a sportsperson, this was purely a personal compulsion—and she found that this made her feel better. Not cured, not fixed of disease, but rather the strongest possible version of herself, measured against only herself, and this realisation that she had even an ounce of control over her body was addictive. There was a lightness in her. Her joints felt lighter. And so she kept it up, kept at it aggressively—that word she used. She said she usually hated talking about it all, the disease, the body. As though words, once they left our mouths, exited the very thing that held the truth.”
"The question of pain and its presence or absence had become a dilemma of identity. On the good days I didn’t believe myself, didn’t believe the memory of pain, gaslighted myself into shame. "
"I fear that I am less devout about some things now, and therefore the scraps of self-knowledge I gathered as I recovered in those months after the hospital have lost importance or relevance to me. "
Sylvia is inspired by poet Sylvia Plath, who experienced severe mental health struggles that eventually took her life. Her works are quoted occasionally in the novel, and the Sylvia persona has Plath’s way of cutting to the bone with words that are sharp and precise, yet still full of emotion. Frida is inspired by artist Frida Kahlo, who spent most of her life in chronic pain after a bus accident left her with devastating injuries. The Frida persona pushes through pain to become her most vibrant self, and Frida Kahlo did similar as she painted in bed and used pain to motivate and influence her artwork. I think a lot of people who go through body/health trauma find "body friends" - inspiring people who have been through similar trials and help us feel empowered to keep going.
This novel is light on plot and is a character-driven story that takes us deep into the interior of a woman who is reconciling her body’s abilities, desires, and experiences. While readers may find this slow moving, the writing is well crafted and the themes are resonant for anyone who has battled with their health (particularly invisible and chronic illnesses). As a vestibular migraine sufferer and someone who had life derailed by a mysterious illness a few years ago, I felt so seen and understood by Brabon’s exploration of what it means to live in a body that betrays your expectations of it.
Including some quotes below that will stick with me:
“Pain dictates perception dictates capacity.”
“She knew that sometimes what the body demands with its pain is not pills but another body, is care.”
“The moment after the crisis when we say, I am through this, and I am changed. I was sick and now I am better. And here are all the good lessons I learned. So many narratives tell us this, and we can’t relate to it. That’s not the story of what is happening to this body here. It is not adequate for the task. There is beginning after beginning and there is no resolution, no end or aftermath.”
“It will always be hard. There will always be hard times. We have to resist the urge to stop. I’s dangerous, the stopping. A slippery slope.”
“It’s difficult sometimes to perceive what you are for a person, when for you they are so much.”
“I wanted us to do nothing. It was bad and I didn’t know why. Another narrative we have taught ourselves and learned so well: move and do and you will be good.”
“And this is probably how it is: when the condition you have is more a condition you are in, it becomes the condition that you are. In other words, with a case of chronic illness you are in and then out of, communing with and then shunning the world or the social contract, the economic milieu, the structural apparatus. The condition is not a possession given, chosen or had, but a state of being. I could not take it out of me.”
"In naming, we overcome silence.”
“The sick day, at its most benign, offers the ability to act out a longing to return to seclusion, mother and child alone together, the precious time when we are allowed to shut out the world. We turn inwards in what might be a primal act of protection. We don’t need to go anywhere. We are advised not to go outside. She spoke of the sick day with something bordering on reverence.”
“These people who enable the truest expression of ourselves are rare. Maybe we don’t know a person all that well, but in the mirror of them we know ourselves. I’d begun to think I should like to find them all, these other ones, my doubled and tripled and multiplied versions, my internal mirrors.”
“There were days when I didn’t swim. This is obvious, but they were significant to me. On the days when I didn’t swim, I felt less definition in the world. I barely escaped a feeling of failure.”
“When her body first showed signs of the disease, Frida said, she’d hoped to work with it, as though the illness was some feral animal she could tame through hard work and diligence. And so she exercised her body far more than she once had—she emphasised she’d never been an athlete, had never been a sportsperson, this was purely a personal compulsion—and she found that this made her feel better. Not cured, not fixed of disease, but rather the strongest possible version of herself, measured against only herself, and this realisation that she had even an ounce of control over her body was addictive. There was a lightness in her. Her joints felt lighter. And so she kept it up, kept at it aggressively—that word she used. She said she usually hated talking about it all, the disease, the body. As though words, once they left our mouths, exited the very thing that held the truth.”
"The question of pain and its presence or absence had become a dilemma of identity. On the good days I didn’t believe myself, didn’t believe the memory of pain, gaslighted myself into shame. "
"I fear that I am less devout about some things now, and therefore the scraps of self-knowledge I gathered as I recovered in those months after the hospital have lost importance or relevance to me. "
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