Sea, Poison

by Caren Beilin

Cumin Baleen is a forty-one-year-old writer living in Philadelphia—this city of hospitals—who works at the upscale grocery Sea & Poison and is navigating the onset of an autoimmune condition. To start a medication that may help, an eye exam is required and this leads to a nightmarish laser eye surgery. The laser shoots into her brain, making her language spare and her sentences clause-less, a vexing constraint that stalls her book on gynecological malpractice: she wants others, in the realm of our for-profit medical industry that “renders the Hippocratic Oath its opposite,” to see poison.

Meanwhile, Cumin is kicked out of her boyfriend Mari’s studio after he falls for Janine, their landlord, and starts renting a closet in Maron’s bedroom— polyamorous Maron who is hooking up with Alix, whom Cumin lusts after. Disheveled from medicines and medical scams, Cumin declares, “I don’t know what to say, I’m saying I have a cracked appearance. It’s not a pity party, it’s a character sketch. Insofar as you’ll need to be looking at me, that your mind should fill me up with its own swaying cognitive and toxic reeds if we are to do this, your imagination should touch me with its ridiculous poison.”

Caren Beilin’s hypnotic and fractured story is at once an homage to Shusaku Endo’s terrifying novel of human vivisection The Sea and Poison and the spirit of Oulipo, the pioneering French writing group that sought new literary potential through constraints.

Genres: Fiction, Literature

144 pages, Paperback

Published October 7, 2025

About the author

Caren Beilin is the author, most recently, of the novel REVENGE OF THE SCAPEGOAT (Dorothy, 2022). She has also written a nonfiction book, BLACKFISHING THE IUD (Wolfman Books, 2019), and a memoir, SPAIN (Rescue Press, 2018). She teaches at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and lives close by, in Vermont.

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wild, smart, and entertaining book centered on medical malpractice in lots of forms. The writing is the star of this show, as Beilin's often bizarre word choices and syntactical decisions make for an untamed reading experience.

[Emily Wood]

Caren, girl, you are wild for this one

[Kevin]

Reviewing this for Southwest Review soon. Stay tuned.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't feel any of this as interesting or a coincidence in that moment, though now it surely comes into focus as a big one. But that is because I am organizing a novel now best I can, amidst the rivers and the piles of everyone, and walking only a broken, only an overgrown and burnt road in my mind. It was a major coincidence, or consequential, even the brain-injured can start to realize that, and I feel it that way now, now as I'm writing it, I understand now that I am obviously reporting a major coincidence, that I am writing a novel, which is formally mostly an inventory of coincidences, but at the time you have to understand I was just another Philadelphian, someone who is quite used to meeting people who work at a university or a hospital in different combinatory amalgamations, it's common.

Sea, Poison by Karen Beilin was published in the US in 2025 by New Directions and is forthcoming in 2026 from Simon and Schuster in the UK.

This is a very distinctive, at times rather baffling, novel. The narrator, Cumin Baleen (the pun a nod to her being an authorial stand-in) undergoes a somewhat unnecessary eye surgery, a complication of which causes her writing style to change, and which proves to be the result of a deliberate Medical OuLiPo experiment by a literary theorist whose PhD was on Anne Frank and George Perec:

”JANINE LE MARIN DRAWS A LINE BETWEEN THE WORK of Georges Perec, a famous orphan of the Holocaust, and the diarist Anne Frank, and asks, Is there a bigger constraint - OuLiPo or otherwise - than genocide?”

"Is Anne Frank in fact our signal Oulipian with her infamous limit on paper to write with, on lit writing hours? The constraint of her blithe older sister, Margot, the constraint of keeping constant company with the van Pels?”

Shūsaku Endō’s The Sea and Poison, in Michael Gallacher’s translation provides the novel its title as well as forming a key backbone of the text, indeed the first draft of the novel was “a line for line syntactical mirror of Endo’s novel about human vivisection during World War II” focused on modern-day medical abuse in OB/GYN, including unnecessary hysterectomies and rape, the former epitomised in the career of Javaid Perwaiz - see: https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/doct...

Throw in Carrie Bradshaw, the dispute between Marie NDiaye and Marie Darrieussecq, Heart of Darkness, polyamorous relationships, the Sex Chair genre of movies and much more, and, in such a (welcome) short page count it makes for an intoxicating and sometimes confusing mix, although Beilin’s key point, about medical malfeasance, with women in particular as the victims, still lands strongly.

The nearest comparison (although not that near) in my reading experience is Patrick Cottrell’s brilliant Sorry to Disturb the Peace, and it was interesting to see Cottrell has both interviewed Beilin, and also teaches one of her earlier works, Revenge of the Scapegoat, on his literary course (on a fascinating list alongside Olga Ravn/Martin Aitken’s The Employees, Maria Ndiaye/Jordan Stump’s Vengeance is Mine, Han Kang/Deborah Smith’s Human Acts and Maya Binman’s Hangman).

Provocative, ambitious and very different, although not entirely successful.

Interview in LARB about that earlier work: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a...

Interview: https://fracturedlit.com/too-sick-too...

Review in Southwest Review: https://southwestreview.com/the-good-...

Thanks to the UK publisher via Netgalley for the ARC

[Jo | HonkIfYouRead · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a beautifully unsettling read. It was the kind of book that lingers in the back of your mind and kind of makes your skin itch. Caren's writing is extremely sharp and lyrical, with an intense amount of dread that sucker punches you. This was not a comforting story in the slightest, but an incredibly powerful one. It felt like a reflection of grief, guilt, and survival that feels both intimate and universal.
While I had really enjoyed the chaos of the writing, it was a bit disorienting. It was kind of hard to stay grounded, but the emotional weight deserves all of the praise. After I finished this in one sitting, I felt a storm of emotions ranging from pure rage to extremely raw. This is one that will sit for me for quite some time....

[Gigi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This evokes a similar uncanny feeling as Sophie Kemp and Jen George, and although I didn’t like this as much as either, I still admired it tremendously. The illusionary chaos of its style and composition, it’s not really like anything else. In its best moments, I felt like I was reading at the disorientating edge of contemporary American literature. These moments happen fairly frequently and it’s like you’re watching the necessities of the form be rewired. There’s some truly bizarre stuff in here. Sharp, weird writing that is absurd, poetic, and fearless in precise and equal measure. It’s best when it stays light on its feet, moving deftly between its strangenesses, carrying its reoccurring motifs between them. There are chapters that are less successful, especially ones that intentionally break from the rapid-fire jagged constructions and oblique style, that suddenly veer into something more sustained and explanatory at the cost of some poignancy.

[Hannah_likes_to_read · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like I just took acid and I think that was somewhat intentional but not sure I gleaned from what I was supposed to.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my strangest and most unique read all year. I still need to time to fully process it. I lost my grip on the narrative at times, but eventually get re-oriented. This story was a funny, absurd, and horrifying journey. Will def be reading again!

[ocelia]

I treasure Caren Beilin and her big big sentences

[Matthew Burris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deranged (complimentary) and every single trigger warning. Difficult and probably a little hard to hand sell but I’m gonna try.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.75/5, rounded up)

𝘠𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣 𝘸𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘰 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳… 𝐈𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐝 🐆
Caren is so perceptively absurd, I had a blast w 𝙎𝙚𝙖, 𝙋𝙤𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙣.

The topics are heavy, no doubt—medical abuses*, capitalism, war, human experimentation, the art of writing, polyamory (ok that one’s not necessarily heavy lol but still, not a topic to take lightly). 𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭, 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘶𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨. Which makes a lot of sense when ya take a peek at 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙚𝙖 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙋𝙤𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙣’s synop (7/7), the novel 𝙎𝙚𝙖, 𝙋𝙤𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙣 pays homage to.

𝙄’𝙢 𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙬𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙠𝙚𝙚𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙡𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨.

& I didn’t expect the extent of her humor—Caren is FUNNNY, dude. Some could be considered a bit immature in content, but her delivery is so well done I didn’t care. I’m not big on 💩 humor, but see how it’s done in 5/7—“𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮”? Come onnnn, I’m dying 😂🤣

My only “complaint” turned out to be what impressed me most about Sea, Poison—𝘐 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘚𝘖 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦. Thank goodness I was reading this w (IG:) @honkifyouread & @hannah_likes_to_read & could check in w them to see if they were lost, too. W time we figured out that more often than not, if you push thru, it’ll make sense in a paragraph or two. Once I got the hang of that it added a new dynamic that I 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 enjoyed… & now that I think about it, idt I’ve ever experienced before? Or if I have, it wasn’t successful 😅

𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐮𝐩, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘐 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰, 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝—𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞. 𝐈𝐭’𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐭.

*ɪ ғᴀᴛ ғɪɴɢᴇʀᴇᴅ ᴀʙᴜsᴇs ᴀɴᴅ ɪᴛ ᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴀɴᴜsᴇs & ɴᴏᴡ ɪ ᴄᴀɴ’ᴛ sᴛᴏᴘ ɢɪɢɢʟɪɴɢ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ “ᴍᴇᴅɪᴄᴀʟ ᴀɴᴜsᴇs

[Yetong Li · Rating 1 out of 5]

i’ll be honest, i picked this one up bc cover intrigued me. actually horrible to get through.

but the cover is still pretty!

—
notes as i read:

surprised by the mention of heart of darkness in the fire chapter.

aha! the title of the book comes from the fact she works at an upscale corner grocery of the same name (not really a spoiler because you find that out on the 2nd page)

why is philadelphia being identified as “this city of hospitals?”

captures the frustration of trying to book a doctors appointment.

okay i’m kind of over it and i’m only a quarter of the at through. the fact that she faints over blood being described as “red becoming redder” - she’s not a very easy narrator to be sympathetic to.

“Can people be oil or only very oily people?”

“toileting,” as a verb. that did give me a laugh.

victim mentality to the extreme. actually reminds me of a friend i know.

suddenly the jewish aspect is a big part of her identity??
holy shit all the sexual assaults during obgyn exams suddenly being thrown at the reader.
maybe this is a spoiler but i think there should be some kind of content warning for sexual assault before reading this book.

maron and the leopard attack. some musings on polyamory: “Polyamorers say they’re about being more open to connection but they end up being closed off from anyone they’re not going to ultimately fuck”

oop okay now we’ve moved on to attacking sex and the city.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you trap a population into working against its own aims?

Picked this up off a Jax rec. What is this about? There are polyamorous couples. There are so many specific references to branded medication that it felt like an advertisement (if only they were positive, instead of negative). There were many, many examinations into the disgusting overabundance of gynecological rape. There is a lot of exploration around this. There are Seinfeld references, and infusions of fish oil (new biohack?) There's a closet and sex toys. There's fantastical rhyming and metaphorizing. There's an insert on page ~100 that said that there was a misprint on page 81. There is a horrible accident during surgery. There, she writes like I talk. There is quite the inspiring reclamation at the end.

It is an homage to The Sea and Poison, although I would hardly know it if it wasn't in the acknowledgements. With all that being said, it was pretty funny at times. And always absurd.

Some questions for discussion:
How closely related are the lives of Caren Beilin and Cumin Baleen?
What were the random Matt POV chapters?
Does she ever get with Alix? or Mari?

[Brooke Sheridan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe the real polyamory is the friends we made along the way.

A chaotic gem of a book. Unsettling, hilarious, dizzying. Never thought I’d say “couldn’t put it down” regarding a book about medical malpractice. The rapid stream of consciousness felt similar to my own. The pace reminded me of “The Monologue”, the second story in “The Woman Destroyed”.

Caren Beilin is a genius and I need to get my hands on all of her work.

———

“Everyone made that certain face, when they heard about the Prednisone, like I was in love with someone in prison.” p. 8

“You have to wonder but humanness is such a process, even the most obvious things like a very simple way to administer eye drops or famously, knowing *not* to put leeches on people’s skin takes time and instances of incidental insights, if that.” p. 11

“… in the way that one becomes a woman by way of her treatment…” p. 30

“Haven’t you,too, lived your life watching a series of things happen which you told yourself you weren’t any real part of? Didn’t you exaggerate yourself because you feel like a child?” p. 95

[Meghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think my fundamental issue with this book is that I struggled to understand it.

Initially I had a sense of what was going on - Cumin, our author, is repeatedly trialling a range of drugs to manage her autoimmune condition. At the same time she has undergone a minor eye surgery after being told she’s at high risk of developing glaucoma - a sight stealing condition in which pressure builds up within the eye. As for her personal life, Cumin has moved to live in a cupboard in polyamorous Maron’s room - yes an actual clothes cupboard - after finding that her boyfriend is cheating with their landlord,

From this point onwards the book starts to descend into madness and alas it lost me.

I think important topics are covered in this book - medical malpractice and rape by gynaecologists, how autoimmune disease affect patients day to day. Unfortunately it just was not for me!

[Jacob Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

“And I understand that’s a little strange. Not terribly strange in the compendium of things, but a little. Why is there a theater in the basement of the clinic? What is happening? A novel is like that, about something happening, which feels off, or false, to focus on that considering. Bodies have been changed into clay by gunshots and poisons, a perilous gas, any way at all to make the body slump and pile about, to act like a lot of pre-pottery by cause of sudden extinguishing, yet in novels people are good-looking. They have curly hair, or big dicks, get and don’t get their tenure, or whatever they want, love, drugs, apartments.”

[Wyatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I’ve read this year, one of the most remarkable books I’ve ever read. I felt compelled to read it, drawn in by its strangeness and humor and the weird shock of realizing with horror at times what I was laughing at. The disjunction is part of the method and the plot, a novel about brain damage and writing, about medical malpractice and insurance scams, about medical experimentation and torture, about rape; about sex and relationships; about OuLiPo and what it means to write about all of this. It doesn’t make sense to say it this way and it often doesn’t “make sense” at all, but again, part of the point. In fact, it makes a perfect and terrible sense.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 I am still going to continue to read whatever this author writes, as I truly enjoy her writing style, but oftentimes the subject matter of her novels are a bit off-putting to me. This book was one of those cases. I really enjoy her eviscerating commentary on the American Medical System the most and the parts of this book that were related to that subject were great.

[Zoë Argabright · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up to 4. At times this book was really difficult to parse through and at times I was laughing out loud. I think this was a much needed reset in my reading, something where I really had to lock in. I enjoyed it a lot

[Patrick Cottrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

i adore this. caren is one of the most exciting writers working right now. more to say soon.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why read anything else when nothing is like this?

[luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5! I am slightly confused… lots going on, very little seems overt.

[Alex Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unpacking all the references to films, filmmakers, writers and so forth, more thoughts on this later.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally found a book too weird even for me. Took a while

[Jeremy Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can have fun while saying, “huh?” a lot.

[Olivia · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars feels generous. For such a short book this was so difficult to get through. Weird and artsy in a painful and un enjoyable way. Would bet money that the author attended an MFA program iykyk

[casey vieira · Rating 5 out of 5]

crazy brilliant

[the_snicklefritz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Rose]

Made it to the halfway mark. Just can't force myself to continue.

[sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll have to revisit my rating after I've had time to digest. weird, interesting, shocking, horrific, funny--its a lot in 113 pages.