What do you think?
Rate this book
Fat Swim: Fiction
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.
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.
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.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published April 28, 2026
About the author
Emma Copley Eisenberg
8 books580 followersEmma Copley Eisenberg is the nationally bestselling author of the novel Housemates, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Fiction and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Prize, as well as the nonfiction book The Third Rainbow Girl, a New York Times Notable Book and Editor’s Choice and a finalist for an Edgar Award and an Anthony Award. She’s received fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Bread Loaf, Tin House, The Millay Colony and others, and her fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in such publications as Granta, The Paris Review, The Believer, Esquire, the Virginia Quarterly Review, The New Republic, Harpers Bazaar, and The Cut. She lives in Philadelphia, where she co-founded Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts. Her next book of fiction, Fat Swim, will be published on April 28, 2026.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 164 reviews
May 1, 2026
I really enjoyed this irreverent, charming collection of stories! I'll admit I was a bit hesitant that this may be a little too on-the-nose after the first entry, but I enjoyed how different each entry was despite the interlinked characters and themes throughout. It's intentionally a little provocative and subversive, and I grew to really enjoy my time with each protagonist. A short story can rarely achieve the perfect balance of depth and brevity, but Eisenberg does it ten times over. I rarely like all entries in a collection, but this is one of the exceptions.
Fat Swim interrogates our relationship to our bodies and challenges the labels and limitations we often assign them. The final few pages in particular were fascinating — I could have read an entire essay about Eisenberg's writing journey for this collection.
If you enjoyed Her Body and Other Parties: Stories (with a dash of Dykette), I think this is a comparable collection you'd enjoy. It has a bit of levity and fun, yet ultimately sticks the landing with its important messaging.
---
I grew up as a socially awkward, gay, fat kid. Stories like this are healing for my inner child.
Thank you to the publisher for the copy!
Substack | Bookstagram | BookTok | BookTube | Bookshop.org Store | Libro.fm Bonus Offer
Fat Swim interrogates our relationship to our bodies and challenges the labels and limitations we often assign them. The final few pages in particular were fascinating — I could have read an entire essay about Eisenberg's writing journey for this collection.
If you enjoyed Her Body and Other Parties: Stories (with a dash of Dykette), I think this is a comparable collection you'd enjoy. It has a bit of levity and fun, yet ultimately sticks the landing with its important messaging.
---
I grew up as a socially awkward, gay, fat kid. Stories like this are healing for my inner child.
Thank you to the publisher for the copy!
Substack | Bookstagram | BookTok | BookTube | Bookshop.org Store | Libro.fm Bonus Offer
July 2, 2026
Fantastic collection of short stories about queerness, fatness, trauma, love, heartbreak, coming of age, and navigating complex relationships with yourself and others. I loved them! I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.
November 28, 2025
ARC for review. To be published April 28, 2026.
4.4 stars
I was so impressed with this collection of ten short stories featuring girls and women. These women aren’t me, but I could see them being me in a different world. I love how the author sees women, especially how she portrays women who are overweight. For some it is just a part of daily existence, not worth remarking upon (kind of) (see the title story, my favorite of the collection). Others often have it too of mind nearly all the time. And I’m so glad there’s a real Kay’s Happy Birthday Bar. I will be looking for more from Eisenberg.
4.4 stars
I was so impressed with this collection of ten short stories featuring girls and women. These women aren’t me, but I could see them being me in a different world. I love how the author sees women, especially how she portrays women who are overweight. For some it is just a part of daily existence, not worth remarking upon (kind of) (see the title story, my favorite of the collection). Others often have it too of mind nearly all the time. And I’m so glad there’s a real Kay’s Happy Birthday Bar. I will be looking for more from Eisenberg.
Read
May 12, 2026Brilliant. Obsessed with "Beauty". A meditation on the body, the self, living an embodied life, interacting with the world as a queer person, as a fat person, as a person seeking love and connection (or isolation).
April 30, 2026
To run from something was not the same thing as being free of it, as it turned out.
Fat Swim is a provocative collection of linked stories about bodies, queerness and sex. Set mostly in Philadelphia, the stories are written for and about a specific audience, but their themes of loneliness, connection, yearning, and the journey of self-discovery are universal. So while I couldn’t necessarily relate to the characters’ specific circumstances, I could certainly identify with a lot of what they were feeling.
A few of my favorites:
In “Fat Swim,” the young narrator joins a group of fat women at a local pool, who unknowingly serve as mentors to help her understand her changing body over the course of one summer. It’s both innocent and wise and reads like a celebration of the female form, no matter its size.
“The Dan Graves Situation” is about a college advisor dealing with a student having a mental health crisis. This story is so compelling, centering on themes of responsibility, obligation, grief, and parent-child dynamics. “There were a thousand ways to fuck up a child, it seemed, and only time would tell your unique, trademark method. Dan Graves’s dad’s was being good and then dying.”
In “Beauty,” a make-up vlogger’s burgeoning online friendship with a middle-schooler forces her to reckon with her (thinner) former life at a toxic beauty start-up. It’s an incredibly reflective story, juxtaposing an adolescent’s perspective with that of a grown woman who, while she may have more life experience, is still trying to figure it all out.
And then there’s “Lanternfly,” which may be the most provocative story in the collection. It’s about a trans man who spends a summer working as an assistant to a popular fantasy writer - but he’s surprised to find his job mostly consists of finding the author the appropriate hook-ups he needs for inspiration. It’s a story about self-discovery, self-doubt, and the ongoing metamorphosis that all humans experience throughout our lives.
Emma Copley Eisenberg has such a bold, confident voice and a critical modern perspective. Fat Swim really showcases that, and I’ll eagerly await whatever Eisenberg writes next. Thank you to Hogarth for the early reading opportunity.
June 2, 2026
Summer Reading prompt: Published in 2026
GOD I wanted to like this. I think the first and last stories are excellent, but everything else felt shoved in to pad those two out. I think my main qualm is titling it Fat Swim when only two of the stories (first and last) follow fat characters at all. The actual book is not about fatness or fat people or even a fat swim, just about Philadelphians having sex and being gay and occasionally fat.
GOD I wanted to like this. I think the first and last stories are excellent, but everything else felt shoved in to pad those two out. I think my main qualm is titling it Fat Swim when only two of the stories (first and last) follow fat characters at all. The actual book is not about fatness or fat people or even a fat swim, just about Philadelphians having sex and being gay and occasionally fat.
November 17, 2025
0.5 stars
The stories in Fat Swim by Emma Copeland Eisenberg lean so hard into the transgressive and offbeat that they completely miss the boat on capturing relatable human experience.
Fat Swim by Emma Copeland Eisenberg is a collection of short stories that take place in Philadelphia. Most of the stories feature queer and/or fat characters dealing with sexuality and relationships; “The Body” is a theme running throughout the collection.
I enjoy stories that confront themes of embodiment in a society that prizes thin, white, cishet bodies above all else. But Eisenberg seems far more interested in stuffing her stories with offbeat characters, quirky pathologies, bizarre dialogue, and transgressive plotlines than exploring human experience. For example, a couple of the stories flirt with themes of incest and pedophilia for seemingly no other purpose than to provoke. The characters speak to themselves and each other in that nonsensical banality commonly celebrated in the creative writing world. As I was reading, I kept thinking, “People don’t talk like that!” “People don’t act like that!” and “This would never happen!”
Because I found the stories wholly unrelatable, I struggled to keep my attention focused. A couple of the stories had moments where, if I squinted hard enough, I could see what sort of vision the author had for their execution. But a couple vague glimmers of clarity in an otherwise soggy mess of a short story collection do not come close to the products as a whole.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
April 26, 2024
I read this out of the pushcart for a class. This is the only short story that’s ever made me cry. I think about it constantly, a great piece of writing that changed me.
June 7, 2026
3.5 ⭐
A thoughtful collection of stories about bodies, identity, friendship, and belonging. Some stories were stronger than others, but the writing was warm, honest, and full of empathy. "Fat Swim" offers a refreshing perspective on self-acceptance and the many ways people search for connection.
A thoughtful collection of stories about bodies, identity, friendship, and belonging. Some stories were stronger than others, but the writing was warm, honest, and full of empathy. "Fat Swim" offers a refreshing perspective on self-acceptance and the many ways people search for connection.
January 20, 2026
[3.5⭐️] I didn’t know what to expect going into this collection of stories, and I wasn’t sure how I felt by the end of it.
Some stories, like Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar, really grabbed and moved me, and others fell short for me. These stories felt very blunt, and at times a bit gritty, but each one was uniquely interesting. And Copley-Eisenberg’s writing is wonderfully descriptive and evocative throughout, and it felt very honest.
Mixed emotions at the end of this read, but in a good way.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.
Some stories, like Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar, really grabbed and moved me, and others fell short for me. These stories felt very blunt, and at times a bit gritty, but each one was uniquely interesting. And Copley-Eisenberg’s writing is wonderfully descriptive and evocative throughout, and it felt very honest.
Mixed emotions at the end of this read, but in a good way.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.
July 5, 2026
Heart heart heart…..reading Eisenberg’s depictions of fat people makes it feel so odd that this kind of writing is so incredibly rare; it feels so natural and real. It could be this good all the time!!
In so many ways I feel seen like I haven’t really felt before (except in the Haunting of Hill House, which I read as allegorically fat but it makes me too emotional to articulate..anyway!) Fat characters are not hateful of their bodies or dream of thinness or fearful of a lack of love over their body type. (And on that note, they fuck other fat people!! Thin people don’t swoop into make them feel valid and worth loving or whatever nonsense.) Instead, there is a keen hyperawareness to certain aspects of the body and their relationships to it. Characters touch their own fat, feeling for the sake of feeling, and observe other fat bodies as they move through the world—Eisenberg is keenly observant of how fat bodies exist in space and sensation, and it’s marvelous—and compare how they’re similar.
Example: “Underneath her overalls she is wearing her multicolored swimsuit. She feels the effects of the elastic fabric—how taut it is and the shimmery sensation it gives where it contacts the denim of her overalls. As she walks, she pooches out her stomach and feels its new smooth-ness, her rolls of fat now one continuous curve.” The exploration of the body is without judgment!! Instead, all unrest here is psychological, relational. The body remains unchanged. Truly, “without [your body], where would you be?” !!!!!!!!!
I’m also so struck by how positive and evocative the descriptions of eating are, how there’s no sense of morals attached the food. (There is so, so much literary fiction with disordered eating.) “Though covered in a fine layer of ice crystals, the Chipwich was soon soft. I ate the edges first, the mini chocolate chips crunching between my back molars. […] I scraped bits of wet cookie from my fingertips with my teeth.” All of Eisenberg’s observations are so keen and real and somatic. I kept reading passages and going yes, yes, exactly!! Like: “She emerges after an hour, the little hairs on her belly glittering in the glancing sun, lies down on the pool chair next to mine,” …her little belly hairs!!
I will note that not every story connected with me, though maybe that is kind of par for the course with short fiction collections. I find it interesting reading other reviews how some people really connected with stories I didn’t care for, so it’s likely mostly taste. The stories I loved most were the explorations of how young fat girls perceive fat women, how it can be both nurturing and tumultuous. In both the younger looking to the older and the older looking to the younger, we see ourselves; we can feel validated or we can dismissed. Often it’s both.
I’ll end on my favorite passage, from a scene in Swiffer Girl, which already I keep returning to: “Come on in and join me, Bree says again. She moves her arms up and down the glass, like she's making a snow angel.
Have a daughter, Swiffer Girl says to me, from Texas, maybe. That's the scenario I'm hoping for, that she lives far away from where we started, in a little house in the part of Texas they call Hill Country. It's not so bad, she says, clothed now in sweats and on the porch of her little house, iced tea in hand. Of course it's very bad, she says. But we survived it.
I take off my T-shirt and shorts and press my bare stomach to the glass too, which makes a satisfying squelching noise. I try to line my body up with Bree's, though she is bigger and taller. When she moves her arms I find I'm able to follow, to mirror her, to fake it until I make it, like I am scrubbing my side of the glass clean or making my own personal kind of swimming.“
In so many ways I feel seen like I haven’t really felt before (except in the Haunting of Hill House, which I read as allegorically fat but it makes me too emotional to articulate..anyway!) Fat characters are not hateful of their bodies or dream of thinness or fearful of a lack of love over their body type. (And on that note, they fuck other fat people!! Thin people don’t swoop into make them feel valid and worth loving or whatever nonsense.) Instead, there is a keen hyperawareness to certain aspects of the body and their relationships to it. Characters touch their own fat, feeling for the sake of feeling, and observe other fat bodies as they move through the world—Eisenberg is keenly observant of how fat bodies exist in space and sensation, and it’s marvelous—and compare how they’re similar.
Example: “Underneath her overalls she is wearing her multicolored swimsuit. She feels the effects of the elastic fabric—how taut it is and the shimmery sensation it gives where it contacts the denim of her overalls. As she walks, she pooches out her stomach and feels its new smooth-ness, her rolls of fat now one continuous curve.” The exploration of the body is without judgment!! Instead, all unrest here is psychological, relational. The body remains unchanged. Truly, “without [your body], where would you be?” !!!!!!!!!
I’m also so struck by how positive and evocative the descriptions of eating are, how there’s no sense of morals attached the food. (There is so, so much literary fiction with disordered eating.) “Though covered in a fine layer of ice crystals, the Chipwich was soon soft. I ate the edges first, the mini chocolate chips crunching between my back molars. […] I scraped bits of wet cookie from my fingertips with my teeth.” All of Eisenberg’s observations are so keen and real and somatic. I kept reading passages and going yes, yes, exactly!! Like: “She emerges after an hour, the little hairs on her belly glittering in the glancing sun, lies down on the pool chair next to mine,” …her little belly hairs!!
I will note that not every story connected with me, though maybe that is kind of par for the course with short fiction collections. I find it interesting reading other reviews how some people really connected with stories I didn’t care for, so it’s likely mostly taste. The stories I loved most were the explorations of how young fat girls perceive fat women, how it can be both nurturing and tumultuous. In both the younger looking to the older and the older looking to the younger, we see ourselves; we can feel validated or we can dismissed. Often it’s both.
I’ll end on my favorite passage, from a scene in Swiffer Girl, which already I keep returning to: “Come on in and join me, Bree says again. She moves her arms up and down the glass, like she's making a snow angel.
Have a daughter, Swiffer Girl says to me, from Texas, maybe. That's the scenario I'm hoping for, that she lives far away from where we started, in a little house in the part of Texas they call Hill Country. It's not so bad, she says, clothed now in sweats and on the porch of her little house, iced tea in hand. Of course it's very bad, she says. But we survived it.
I take off my T-shirt and shorts and press my bare stomach to the glass too, which makes a satisfying squelching noise. I try to line my body up with Bree's, though she is bigger and taller. When she moves her arms I find I'm able to follow, to mirror her, to fake it until I make it, like I am scrubbing my side of the glass clean or making my own personal kind of swimming.“
April 28, 2026
I liiiiive for a set of short stories and this is definitely a collection to live for!
Just reading this over the last few days has made me feel more aware of my body while in my body. This book is for bodies. It gave me Heavy by Kiese Laymon vibes, the Shrill pool party episode vibes, and also Housemates vibes because duh, the books have the same mom.
I absolutely love the fatness of it all. Eisenberg has written on this and I think of this statistic often - less than 1% of literary novels have fat people in them. It’s truly bonkers, but reading her books feels like taking the first dose of good medicine in the right direction.
And for another treat, you simply must look up the Fat Swim billboard that Eiseberg had put up in Philadelphia! ICONIC. 👏🏼
Whenever I finish Eisenberg’s books, my first inclination is to start them over from the very beginning and I think I just might with this one too.
It’s sapphic, it’s beautiful, it’s big, it’s loving. Wonderful book.
Just reading this over the last few days has made me feel more aware of my body while in my body. This book is for bodies. It gave me Heavy by Kiese Laymon vibes, the Shrill pool party episode vibes, and also Housemates vibes because duh, the books have the same mom.
I absolutely love the fatness of it all. Eisenberg has written on this and I think of this statistic often - less than 1% of literary novels have fat people in them. It’s truly bonkers, but reading her books feels like taking the first dose of good medicine in the right direction.
And for another treat, you simply must look up the Fat Swim billboard that Eiseberg had put up in Philadelphia! ICONIC. 👏🏼
Whenever I finish Eisenberg’s books, my first inclination is to start them over from the very beginning and I think I just might with this one too.
It’s sapphic, it’s beautiful, it’s big, it’s loving. Wonderful book.
June 18, 2026
Emily Copley Eisenberg does it again! I loved this book almost as much as Housemates. The queerness, questions of the body, the Philly diaspora! Short stories that are also all sort of connected?! Sign me up!
January 31, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and Hogarth for the arc! I was so excited to receive it. I adore Copley Eisenberg’s work and this was no exception. I really enjoyed the bizarreness and queerness of the stories. The last one went a bit over my head (some of the others did too) but that’s a me problem. The writing was exquisite. Would definitely recommend to my community.
June 9, 2026
i loved this very much, especially the final story
April 26, 2026
(Review as appears on IG: @megansreview)
Thank you to Netgalley and Hogarth Books for the ARC! Fat Swim was one of my most anticipated books of 2026 - but didn't meet my expectations, This collection of short stories features queer and fat characters at the center, representation that is seen so rarely in fiction, and I was really looking forward to reading this. Only a few of the stories spoke to me - and I particularly enjoyed one featuring a trans man who was tasked with finding hookups for his octogenarian employer. Unfortunately, most of this collection fell flat for me, and I am heartbroken to admit that. We all want stories with the kinds of representation we're excited about to be good, and it feels like a letdown when our expectations aren't met! Queer and fat people are depicted so naturally in the book, and that was my favorite aspect. But a majority of the stories themselves, as well as the writing, didn't do much for me, and I found myself struggling to finish this collection.
I also was very put off by multiple stories that portrayed (and seemed to encourage) sexual scenarios or suggestive relationships between adults and minors, and parents and their children. In several of these scenes, the adults didn't seem to think twice about these relationship dynamics or that their behavior towards the children was inappropriate or strange. The way these relationships were handled felt irresponsible and unfortunately ruined most of my enjoyment of the book. Has anyone else read this, and did you feel the same way about this collection?
Thank you to Netgalley and Hogarth Books for the ARC! Fat Swim was one of my most anticipated books of 2026 - but didn't meet my expectations, This collection of short stories features queer and fat characters at the center, representation that is seen so rarely in fiction, and I was really looking forward to reading this. Only a few of the stories spoke to me - and I particularly enjoyed one featuring a trans man who was tasked with finding hookups for his octogenarian employer. Unfortunately, most of this collection fell flat for me, and I am heartbroken to admit that. We all want stories with the kinds of representation we're excited about to be good, and it feels like a letdown when our expectations aren't met! Queer and fat people are depicted so naturally in the book, and that was my favorite aspect. But a majority of the stories themselves, as well as the writing, didn't do much for me, and I found myself struggling to finish this collection.
I also was very put off by multiple stories that portrayed (and seemed to encourage) sexual scenarios or suggestive relationships between adults and minors, and parents and their children. In several of these scenes, the adults didn't seem to think twice about these relationship dynamics or that their behavior towards the children was inappropriate or strange. The way these relationships were handled felt irresponsible and unfortunately ruined most of my enjoyment of the book. Has anyone else read this, and did you feel the same way about this collection?
May 29, 2026
I’m sorry to say this really isn’t my thing. I think I like fiction to either have gorgeous poetic writing and/or plot. This really has neither for me. I was very bored. I did like two of the stories - Fat Swim and Lanternfly. Also Mama was pretty enjoyable for me.
January 28, 2026
I’m dedicated to reading queer fiction so I wanted to give this a go even though I was underwhelmed by Housemates. There were moments here that worked well for me and I found intriguing. Other times it suffered from clunky prose, endings that fizzled out, and an emotional detachment from the characters. A lot of them failed to stand out from one another and their voices all kind of ran together.
My favorite story was Lanternfly, from the perspective of a transmasc personal assistant for an aging gay science fiction writer. Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar, Beauty, and Camp Sensation also stood out. I didn’t like Sundays or I Want a Friend, the former waxing poetic about bi polyamory and the latter an lamentation of a friend breakup.
One of the recurring characters Michael really confused me, really not sure what was going on with him but it hinted at some really disturbing things without actually looking at them head on.
Overall a decent collection of stories exploring queerness, fatness, and the experience of having a body. Some people will probably really like it, but it didn't work for me unfortunately!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC
My favorite story was Lanternfly, from the perspective of a transmasc personal assistant for an aging gay science fiction writer. Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar, Beauty, and Camp Sensation also stood out. I didn’t like Sundays or I Want a Friend, the former waxing poetic about bi polyamory and the latter an lamentation of a friend breakup.
One of the recurring characters Michael really confused me, really not sure what was going on with him but it hinted at some really disturbing things without actually looking at them head on.
Overall a decent collection of stories exploring queerness, fatness, and the experience of having a body. Some people will probably really like it, but it didn't work for me unfortunately!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC
December 9, 2025
I thoroughly enjoyed this series of short stories. These were stories where I felt seen, where the fat on my belly was something our author gave thought and attention and time to. Centreing the experiences of queer fat women in writing is more healing that I thought it would be, and I especially enjoyed Fat Swim and Camp Sensation. I could read an entire book around the plot of Camp Sensation, and I loved the (un)becoming explored through the (dis)embodying our cast went through. I found it interesting how we see the character of "Gin" pop up time and again, all the way into the last story.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC!
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC!
May 31, 2026
It is so cool to read an entire collection of stories about bodies and sexualities and gender identities that are (at least today) outside the mainstream and yet not at all foreign. We are all fat, or are getting fat, or are trying not to be fat, or love someone fat. We are all gay or trans, or know someone who is. These attributes aren't exotic; they belong to us. To our families. To our neighbors. And yet how often do we read accurate, detailed, nuanced, humanized stories of such people and what they experience and care about?
This is what Eisenberg's collection gives us. She also gives us an incredibly accurate sense of place (Philadelphia, New York City) and a regular reminder that some things, while never stated explicitly ("Swiffer Girl," ghosting), are still always understood. The characters in these stories, from young to old, are all trying to be at peace with themselves. As we all are.
Props, also, for dedicating "Beauty" to Jonathan Franzen. It forced me to look up the inspiration for this story, and then I just loved it all the more. It's a great story. Perhaps my favorite of the collection, although "Lanternfly" was equally memorable. I'd have to reread the stories to decide.
Lastly, just because I was so impressed, I'm going to share one passage that absolutely captures the essence of NYC. I wish I had written it.
This is what Eisenberg's collection gives us. She also gives us an incredibly accurate sense of place (Philadelphia, New York City) and a regular reminder that some things, while never stated explicitly ("Swiffer Girl," ghosting), are still always understood. The characters in these stories, from young to old, are all trying to be at peace with themselves. As we all are.
Props, also, for dedicating "Beauty" to Jonathan Franzen. It forced me to look up the inspiration for this story, and then I just loved it all the more. It's a great story. Perhaps my favorite of the collection, although "Lanternfly" was equally memorable. I'd have to reread the stories to decide.
Lastly, just because I was so impressed, I'm going to share one passage that absolutely captures the essence of NYC. I wish I had written it.
I rode three trains every morning to get to this school, and on each I could expect to see at least one person in mortal danger. A very thin woman in very expensive shoes would be crying in her seat and the woman standing above her in a sweatshirt would be trying not to notice. In the passageway where people ran toward the number 7 train, a man with plastic bags wrapped around his feet would be begging for mercy. There was no time for his mercy, the running people said, their hair streaming behind them, no space in their bodies for what such mercy would require. I was one of them and there was no space in my body either. If you opened yourself up just a smidge, went the thinking, there was no telling what might come rushing in.
Read
May 10, 2026HEY!! YOU PEOPLE WHO ALSO LOVED MILK FED!! Check this out! I always talk about how the part of the copy that calls Milk Fed “a tale of appetites: physical hunger, sexual desire, spiritual longing” is so perfectly on the nose, and I think this story collection scratched a similar itch for me. On queerness, bodies, and desire. How much wanting is too much? Is there even such a thing as too much?
“I want both cake and pie, to live by the ocean and in an ocean of strangers. One day I stick a jumbo yellow barrette in my hair, pair it with a white cotton sundress; the next I'll pull on Carhartt work pants and a sleeveless muscle tee. I do not mix and match, I do not mash up. I separate, alternate, switch, repeat.
Is this too much chaos? The world says yes, but I say no. There is something delicious in putting two things that should be kept apart right up next to each other. For example, in the late afternoon, putting your hand inside a girl who is saying Oh shit into your neck, and then, at dusk, putting your face into the crevasse made by two pillows as a man pushes into you, saying these same words again and again.”
(I will be thinking about these two paragraphs for the rest of my life.)
———
“I look back at Beth. They have stayed where we were, feet in the wet sand, the canvas of their shoes surely soaked through by now. Their eyes are closed like they are praying or simply calm, free of anxiety. It is their calmness, their peace, how not afraid they are, that chills me and makes me shudder. My child is magic, cheating sorrow, bathing in love in a way the world has never known and will not allow.”
(From a short story about a woman and her polyamorous daughter)
“I knew about gay men and saw them all the time, but I wouldn't know the word lesbian until years later. I definitely heard it in high school, but somehow I never saw it, and certainly never believed in it.”
“I want both cake and pie, to live by the ocean and in an ocean of strangers. One day I stick a jumbo yellow barrette in my hair, pair it with a white cotton sundress; the next I'll pull on Carhartt work pants and a sleeveless muscle tee. I do not mix and match, I do not mash up. I separate, alternate, switch, repeat.
Is this too much chaos? The world says yes, but I say no. There is something delicious in putting two things that should be kept apart right up next to each other. For example, in the late afternoon, putting your hand inside a girl who is saying Oh shit into your neck, and then, at dusk, putting your face into the crevasse made by two pillows as a man pushes into you, saying these same words again and again.”
(I will be thinking about these two paragraphs for the rest of my life.)
———
“I look back at Beth. They have stayed where we were, feet in the wet sand, the canvas of their shoes surely soaked through by now. Their eyes are closed like they are praying or simply calm, free of anxiety. It is their calmness, their peace, how not afraid they are, that chills me and makes me shudder. My child is magic, cheating sorrow, bathing in love in a way the world has never known and will not allow.”
(From a short story about a woman and her polyamorous daughter)
“I knew about gay men and saw them all the time, but I wouldn't know the word lesbian until years later. I definitely heard it in high school, but somehow I never saw it, and certainly never believed in it.”
June 9, 2026
In a video conversation with the YouTuber who goes by MrBeat, Dan Olsen said a human work is art when it makes you feel something, even disgust.
Fat Swim is a work of art about fat intimacies that made me feel a lot of things: frequently disgust, but also hope, grief, fear, and nostalgia. Aside from the disgust, provoked by both the stories’ aesthetic (Copley writes like an MFA, especially in her oldest stories.) and their content (Heteropatriarchal terror and anti-fat abuse abound.), the nostalgia was what hit me the hardest. Copley has a knack for capturing what it felt like to be alive at precise moments of time. The titular story describes the adolescent moment between sexual awakening and sexual shame. In Swiffer Girl, it’s the chat rooms and chain emails of the early-2000s internet.
My favorite stories are the ones in which Copley draws her protagonist’s imperfections with tender understanding: Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar, Beauty, Lanternfly, and Swiffer Girl. My least favorites were the ones that felt like they were trying so hard to be Literary that I had no idea what the fuck was going on.
I received a free eARC via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Fat Swim is a work of art about fat intimacies that made me feel a lot of things: frequently disgust, but also hope, grief, fear, and nostalgia. Aside from the disgust, provoked by both the stories’ aesthetic (Copley writes like an MFA, especially in her oldest stories.) and their content (Heteropatriarchal terror and anti-fat abuse abound.), the nostalgia was what hit me the hardest. Copley has a knack for capturing what it felt like to be alive at precise moments of time. The titular story describes the adolescent moment between sexual awakening and sexual shame. In Swiffer Girl, it’s the chat rooms and chain emails of the early-2000s internet.
My favorite stories are the ones in which Copley draws her protagonist’s imperfections with tender understanding: Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar, Beauty, Lanternfly, and Swiffer Girl. My least favorites were the ones that felt like they were trying so hard to be Literary that I had no idea what the fuck was going on.
I received a free eARC via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
May 23, 2026
After obsessing over Housemates when I read it two summers ago, this was an insta-buy and insta-read for me when I saw it at the bookstore, despite me usually not really liking short stories collections. I find Emma Copley Eisenberg’s perspective on humanity to be so clear and empathetic without coming from that place of preachy moralism that I’m getting from a lot of new fiction releases these days. I came away from this collection feeling similarly to how I felt after housemates: even though there were plenty of dark emotions explored in the book, I felt this warmth and hope for humanity.
Emma Copley Eisenberg has also given me a deep obsession with the city of Philadelphia even though I have never been there. So much so that I’m planning a visit, so shout out to Philadelphia’s newest tourism ambassador.
Emma Copley Eisenberg has also given me a deep obsession with the city of Philadelphia even though I have never been there. So much so that I’m planning a visit, so shout out to Philadelphia’s newest tourism ambassador.
June 18, 2026
I enjoyed this but since it was a collection of stories I don’t have much to say for my review and will use this space for something else. In typical Mary fashion, I read a few other peoples reviews after I finished and found one that listed a complaint that it was “wholly unrelatable.” And to that person, the level to which you do or don’t relate to a book or it’s characters does not determine its inherent value. It can be great when you do feel seen or represented in a character/their experiences, but it’s also important to be able to put yourself in someone’s shoes who’s completely different from you and does/sees things differently. That’s how we build empathy!! Maybe this person knows this and at least they (supposedly) took the time to read this book, but listing it as being unrelatable as a negative thing really grinded my gears.
April 28, 2026
*Thanks to the author for my ARC audiobook!* 3.5 stars
As a Philadelphian, this one felt like a secret passed between friends. I recognized the streets, the bars, the heart of the city that I've called home for over 20 years.
The title story, Fat Swim, was easily my favorite. It’s such a beautiful, tender look at a daughter growing into her body while her dad is struggling to love his own. It really hit. I also loved Mother and Lanternfly.
Emma writes relationships in a way that feels soft, warm, and real. Some stories grabbed me more than others, but overall it’s a really heartfelt collection centered on fatness, queerness, and closeness.
As a Philadelphian, this one felt like a secret passed between friends. I recognized the streets, the bars, the heart of the city that I've called home for over 20 years.
The title story, Fat Swim, was easily my favorite. It’s such a beautiful, tender look at a daughter growing into her body while her dad is struggling to love his own. It really hit. I also loved Mother and Lanternfly.
Emma writes relationships in a way that feels soft, warm, and real. Some stories grabbed me more than others, but overall it’s a really heartfelt collection centered on fatness, queerness, and closeness.
June 11, 2026
Meh! I didn’t love this as much as I wanted to. 3 stars. I really like the style of writing (kind of stream of consciousness, very literary) but I didn’t relate to the stories which is why it was so hard to get through. Some I liked better than others- and I am on a quest to continue to read stories from people whose experiences are different than my own- so from that perspective, it was very interesting and eye opening. I liked the Philly references. Some of the stories completely lost me. I would, however, be curious to read the author’s other work as I did like their writing style.
May 15, 2026
Another NetGalley ARC yay!! I really enjoyed this book and the way the separate stories overlapped with each other. The titular story was my favorite I think. Would recommend to other people who liked David Levithan’s short stories in the 2010s although it is not really like that at all.
June 27, 2026
Some of the stories I really liked some I didn’t love. I really liked reading the last one and connecting all the characters. Have so many questions about the ending and also is what probably bumped it up to four stars. Beauty was my favorite I think.
You kinda have to have a body huh
You kinda have to have a body huh
May 6, 2026
4.5 stars
my favorite story was by far the titular story, Fat Swim. I loved Beauty. Camp Sensation closing it out was excellent. I'm sad it's over, and I can't wait to pick up the author's other book.
my favorite story was by far the titular story, Fat Swim. I loved Beauty. Camp Sensation closing it out was excellent. I'm sad it's over, and I can't wait to pick up the author's other book.
May 6, 2026
I SPED through this! Which I guess means that I liked it a lot? Honestly there are a few stories that I don't remember very well, but some that I will remember for a long time like the titular one, Lanternfly, and Camp Sensation. I liked this a lot better than Housemates but am taking off a half star for the stilted/unrealistic dialogue throughout it. Reading this really put into perspective how infrequently fat characters are written with any freaking dignity in literary fiction and in that way felt extremely refreshing and necessary and life giving like sliding into a pool on a hot day.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 164 reviews