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If the Body Allows It: Stories
Longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection
Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, If the Body Allows It is divided into six parts and framed by the story of Marie, a woman in her thirties living in Newark, New Jersey. Suffering from a chronic autoimmune illness, she also struggles with guilt over the overdose and death of her father, whom she feels she betrayed at the end of his life. The stories within the frame—about failed marriages, places of isolation and protection, teenage mistakes, and forging a life in the aftermath—are the stories the narrator writes after she meets and falls in love with a man whose grief mirrors her own. If the Body Allows It explores illness and its aftermath, guilt and addiction, and the relationships the characters form after they’ve lost everyone else, including themselves.
Introspective, devastating, and funny, If the Body Allows It grapples with the idea that life is always on the brink of never being the same again.
Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, If the Body Allows It is divided into six parts and framed by the story of Marie, a woman in her thirties living in Newark, New Jersey. Suffering from a chronic autoimmune illness, she also struggles with guilt over the overdose and death of her father, whom she feels she betrayed at the end of his life. The stories within the frame—about failed marriages, places of isolation and protection, teenage mistakes, and forging a life in the aftermath—are the stories the narrator writes after she meets and falls in love with a man whose grief mirrors her own. If the Body Allows It explores illness and its aftermath, guilt and addiction, and the relationships the characters form after they’ve lost everyone else, including themselves.
Introspective, devastating, and funny, If the Body Allows It grapples with the idea that life is always on the brink of never being the same again.
270 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2020
17 people are currently reading
394 people want to read
About the author
Megan Cummins
2 books70 followersMegan Cummins is a writer and editor living in New York. She is the author of the novel ATOMIC HEARTS (Ballantine) and the story collection IF THE BODY ALLOWS IT (University of Nebraska Press), which was awarded the 2019 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction and longlisted for the Story Prize and the PEN/Bingham Award.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
August 28, 2020
This is a dark, funny, and complex meditation on chronic illness, addiction, and coming of age. Marie is a flawed, engrossing, sharp, and mesmerizing heroine, and the stories she has written are just as powerful as the character who created them. I recommend this highly to anyone who wants a page-turner that makes you think, particularly fans of Olive Kitteridge, Use Me, Sweet Talk, and other linked collections with strong, thoughtful heroines.
April 5, 2021
A lovely beautifully written collection of well-crafted stories, some linked overtly, others more quietly, in theme and circumstance, like friendship, family, addicted dads, autoimmune mystery breakdowns, surprise pregnancies, ex-boyfriends, and a great deal of drinking. The linked stories have one main character, but the others have a variety--men and women and teen girls. So many aspects were shared that I got a pleasantly blurry feeling that each story, translucent, piled one atop another, formed a beautiful impression of one person, or many similar ones, stumbling along with feeling, just trying to figure out how to be human in the world.
May 19, 2020
Seems like I just read a similar book. Something about these young female authors and their much labored over debuts of quietly psychological dramas that is just so over the top sincere and earnest, it’s like an acoustic song at an open mic. But don’t take it the wrong way, this isn’t meant as a critique, more like a description of the genuine mien of the thing. At any rate, this one actually is a prizewinner, a prize I’ve never heard of, but still. Oddly compiled, this is a collection of short stories, but only some of them are interconnected and those are interspersed throughout the book with more random entries in between. Which is to say it has one main narrative that is continued throughout the book and is meant to provide a sort of frame for other stories. The connection here is more thematically based then…as the title suggests, these are in many ways tales of failings, limitations and disappointments, for even when the soul’s willing, the body may not follow. The lives led in these stories are mostly of the proverbial quiet desperation, of people struggling to connect and sometimes just struggling to survive in a very real nonmetaphysical way. There’s a lot about addiction, lack of control, lack of direction, fighting small fights to occasionally claim small or pyrrhic victories, disappointments, efforts made to connect, maybe to love. The writing itself is good, the style is very realistic and attention to details is paid. But the overall effect is that of a bleak sad read with not much to remember it by. Maybe too close to life? Maybe you just have to be in a mood for it. After all, as the song tells us, life goes on even after the thrill of living is gone. Maybe life isn’t meant to be thrilling, maybe quiet desperation is where it’s at. This book will certainly provide your sadness with company. Question is what do you want your reading to do for you. Thanks Netgalley.
October 22, 2020
SIX WORD REVIEWS: ...about love, family, coming of age.
November 17, 2020
A beautiful, harrowing, bittersweet, and cathartic mosaic
October 5, 2023
The stories in this collection were really good.
February 10, 2021
One of my students gave this story collection to me as a holiday gift. I finished it in mid-January, and have been thinking about the characters and various circumstances of these women ever since. Even though many of the stories are tinged with loss and melancholy, I found these stories uplifting in terms of how these young women navigate their lives and their bodies (and often chronic illness). Also, there are coming-of-stories that are original and thought-provoking. For example, in "Flour Baby," a young woman named Reggie has to contend with being in the same school as the son of the victim who was killed by her father in a drunk-driving accident. The titled object—"flour baby"—is the personified baby that Reggie is assigned to take care of, but yet she can't take care of herself.
In the concluding story, "Skeleton," Cummins animates a kind of meta-narrative about the stories we tell and don't tell. In a bookstore reading scene, the main character is answering an audience question about what feelings went into writing her recent book: "I say Octavia and I talked about how we weren't the first people in the world who've gotten sick and whose father died. But sometimes it feels like our loneliness is unparalleled, and so we try to make connects, to turn coincidence into fate, in order to fill the empty spaces, but instead of feeling a sense of understanding, the empty spaces just grow more we try to connect and analyze them"
I felt like all of these stories spoke to that unparalleled loneliness—sometimes we find connections with people, and other times, within short stories. Highly recommend this debut story collection.
In the concluding story, "Skeleton," Cummins animates a kind of meta-narrative about the stories we tell and don't tell. In a bookstore reading scene, the main character is answering an audience question about what feelings went into writing her recent book: "I say Octavia and I talked about how we weren't the first people in the world who've gotten sick and whose father died. But sometimes it feels like our loneliness is unparalleled, and so we try to make connects, to turn coincidence into fate, in order to fill the empty spaces, but instead of feeling a sense of understanding, the empty spaces just grow more we try to connect and analyze them"
I felt like all of these stories spoke to that unparalleled loneliness—sometimes we find connections with people, and other times, within short stories. Highly recommend this debut story collection.
May 19, 2020
It’s not very often that I read a short story collection that I instantly want to give to all my classmates. Ms. Cummins’ debut works beautifully as both a story collection and linked collection, so you get the satisfaction of a very complex main character throughout the book, but also the beauty of these one-off stories. Perfect for these days in quarantine!
Many women in my family have struggled with motherhood issues (or judgment of rejecting motherhood) in its many forms. This book makes these issues relatable and relevant to all. Also, I spent some summers in Michigan at my aunt’s growing up, and I recognized a lot of these places. That was an added pleasure for you Midwestern readers out there.
I recently read books by Stuart Dybek and Peter Ho Davies in my ENG 151 course, and this book would’ve been great in conversation with the worldliness and warm melancholy of those authors. I can’t wait to see what Ms. Cummins writes next. You can tell she’s gonna be the next big thing.
Copy received from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Many women in my family have struggled with motherhood issues (or judgment of rejecting motherhood) in its many forms. This book makes these issues relatable and relevant to all. Also, I spent some summers in Michigan at my aunt’s growing up, and I recognized a lot of these places. That was an added pleasure for you Midwestern readers out there.
I recently read books by Stuart Dybek and Peter Ho Davies in my ENG 151 course, and this book would’ve been great in conversation with the worldliness and warm melancholy of those authors. I can’t wait to see what Ms. Cummins writes next. You can tell she’s gonna be the next big thing.
Copy received from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.
August 26, 2020
𝘼𝙙𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙬, 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙𝙣’𝙩 𝙗𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙤𝙣𝙚.
𝘐𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘈𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘐𝘵 centers on Marie, who lost her father to a drug overdose and blames herself for ignoring his attempt at reaching out before the tragedy. When she meets Peter, who has just as much guilt over the senseless death of his best friend, the two form a strange bond over their wounds, oozing with regrets. In 𝘚𝘬𝘪𝘯, Marie must make difficult choices in order to use a new infusion drug to help ‘improve her quality of life’, because anyone with an autoimmune disease knows there is no cure. The heart has its needs but the body’s demands must always be met first. Hoping to have a life with the body declaring mutiny is just another mountain she has to climb. Where is the hope when doctors are stumped, when everything is left to chance? How do you frame a life, let alone relationships, and heal from loss when your failing body is the biggest mystery of all?
Other stories are about the strange twists of fate, longings, unrequited love, loneliness, wayward children, strained marriages, and the shock of losing the good things you once had. In 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵, a married woman is stunned to learn a boy she knew twenty years ago became a famous singer and decides to see his show. She will use his old pet-name “Beast” as a means to spark his memory of their prom night together and maybe escape her boring life.
𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭𝘴– Karen wants more for her daughters than a life working behind a counter, but if she can’t even domesticate the many stray cats that her daughter Venus first began rescuing, how can she get Venus to change? Worse, her second husband Warren bucks against the very idea of Venus moving in with them again, not with all her “troubles”. Her younger daughter Maille may call Warren dad and be in better control of her life than her flailing sister Venus, but she makes Karen feel inept. The missing piece, the girls father Charlie, has been dead for seventeen years and Karen can’t help comparing Warren to him (in her mind anyway). How can a mother ever express to a man like Warren why she is welded to her adult children and their needs, why she is gutted by the ideal of Venus’s “expiring potential”?
𝘍𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘉𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘴– When a divorcee runs into her first love at a party she strikes up a conversation, against all reason. As the two fill in the gaps of their missing years, she ignores the wounds of their past and worse, the festering infection, her own troubled brother Duck. The old tenderness between them may still be alive but a blizzard is about to change that. It is a story about our perceptions of events and the measure of forgiveness. What is the weight of victim-hood? Sharp edges of memories remain despite the passage of years and everything left unspoken is souring by the minute.
𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘞𝘢𝘴 𝘔𝘦 𝘖𝘯𝘤𝘦- Jordan is settled into a ready made family, feeling as though every opportunity ever presented to him has vanished into thin air. When he isn’t following his ex-wife Dani on the internet, a young bride at the time they married and unable to stick with him, he is wasting his life working as a cashier and dealing with the tension between he and his current partner Mara. Mara, who is forever in his corner and loyal to the end. With Dani back on the scene he has a chance to ‘rewrite his life’ but is the plunge worth the risk?
𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘉𝘢𝘣𝘺– In the wake of her father’s serious crime, high school student Reggie may as well be one of the damned. She needs distraction from the shame the sins of her father has generated and finds it in classmate Matt. With the “flour baby project” at school, she has a chance to bring up her abysmal grade but ruin seems to be chasing her. This is an interesting story- people support the victim’s family (as they should) but never consider the innocent bystanders within the family of the perpetrator. It’s a sensitive subject and provocative.
𝘛𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘺– Elizabeth feels her best friend Greta is growing out of her reach and on the verge leaving her behind. More often on the brutal end of Greta’s mean deliveries and criticisms, Elizabeth feels threatened already when Ian, an older neighbor, takes up too much space between them. What can she do with all the emptiness and pain but fill it with an act of her own betrayal?
Each story is about how we carry the grief fate deals us and try to define ourselves through the trials of the heart, mind, soul and body. It can be a brutal experience and we don’t always win. The writing is rich and I commiserate with the illness Marie faces as it’s close to home. Being alive is messy, sometimes it’s our own doing and sometimes it’s just the mean turn of fate.
Publication Date: September 1, 2020
University of Nebraska Press
𝘐𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘈𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘐𝘵 centers on Marie, who lost her father to a drug overdose and blames herself for ignoring his attempt at reaching out before the tragedy. When she meets Peter, who has just as much guilt over the senseless death of his best friend, the two form a strange bond over their wounds, oozing with regrets. In 𝘚𝘬𝘪𝘯, Marie must make difficult choices in order to use a new infusion drug to help ‘improve her quality of life’, because anyone with an autoimmune disease knows there is no cure. The heart has its needs but the body’s demands must always be met first. Hoping to have a life with the body declaring mutiny is just another mountain she has to climb. Where is the hope when doctors are stumped, when everything is left to chance? How do you frame a life, let alone relationships, and heal from loss when your failing body is the biggest mystery of all?
Other stories are about the strange twists of fate, longings, unrequited love, loneliness, wayward children, strained marriages, and the shock of losing the good things you once had. In 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵, a married woman is stunned to learn a boy she knew twenty years ago became a famous singer and decides to see his show. She will use his old pet-name “Beast” as a means to spark his memory of their prom night together and maybe escape her boring life.
𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭𝘴– Karen wants more for her daughters than a life working behind a counter, but if she can’t even domesticate the many stray cats that her daughter Venus first began rescuing, how can she get Venus to change? Worse, her second husband Warren bucks against the very idea of Venus moving in with them again, not with all her “troubles”. Her younger daughter Maille may call Warren dad and be in better control of her life than her flailing sister Venus, but she makes Karen feel inept. The missing piece, the girls father Charlie, has been dead for seventeen years and Karen can’t help comparing Warren to him (in her mind anyway). How can a mother ever express to a man like Warren why she is welded to her adult children and their needs, why she is gutted by the ideal of Venus’s “expiring potential”?
𝘍𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘉𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘴– When a divorcee runs into her first love at a party she strikes up a conversation, against all reason. As the two fill in the gaps of their missing years, she ignores the wounds of their past and worse, the festering infection, her own troubled brother Duck. The old tenderness between them may still be alive but a blizzard is about to change that. It is a story about our perceptions of events and the measure of forgiveness. What is the weight of victim-hood? Sharp edges of memories remain despite the passage of years and everything left unspoken is souring by the minute.
𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘞𝘢𝘴 𝘔𝘦 𝘖𝘯𝘤𝘦- Jordan is settled into a ready made family, feeling as though every opportunity ever presented to him has vanished into thin air. When he isn’t following his ex-wife Dani on the internet, a young bride at the time they married and unable to stick with him, he is wasting his life working as a cashier and dealing with the tension between he and his current partner Mara. Mara, who is forever in his corner and loyal to the end. With Dani back on the scene he has a chance to ‘rewrite his life’ but is the plunge worth the risk?
𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘉𝘢𝘣𝘺– In the wake of her father’s serious crime, high school student Reggie may as well be one of the damned. She needs distraction from the shame the sins of her father has generated and finds it in classmate Matt. With the “flour baby project” at school, she has a chance to bring up her abysmal grade but ruin seems to be chasing her. This is an interesting story- people support the victim’s family (as they should) but never consider the innocent bystanders within the family of the perpetrator. It’s a sensitive subject and provocative.
𝘛𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘺– Elizabeth feels her best friend Greta is growing out of her reach and on the verge leaving her behind. More often on the brutal end of Greta’s mean deliveries and criticisms, Elizabeth feels threatened already when Ian, an older neighbor, takes up too much space between them. What can she do with all the emptiness and pain but fill it with an act of her own betrayal?
Each story is about how we carry the grief fate deals us and try to define ourselves through the trials of the heart, mind, soul and body. It can be a brutal experience and we don’t always win. The writing is rich and I commiserate with the illness Marie faces as it’s close to home. Being alive is messy, sometimes it’s our own doing and sometimes it’s just the mean turn of fate.
Publication Date: September 1, 2020
University of Nebraska Press
August 21, 2020
If the Body Allows It is a collection of loosely connected short stories revolving around a woman named Marie who struggles with both crippling guilt surrounding her father's death and an autoimmune disease. The prose is beautifully confessional and rich in imagery as we traverse each story and find connections between each of the characters and situations. The stories are all very human and relatable, attempting to make sense of addiction, guilt, illness, and failing relationships. Perhaps the one drawback of the collection is the pacing. I found myself completely engrossed by the first story and its detailing of a marriage based on lies and secret credit card debt, and I found that the remainder of the stories never reached those heights again for me. Despite this, If the Body Allows It is still an interesting meditation on pressing subjects.
**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to University of Nebraska Press**
**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to University of Nebraska Press**
September 27, 2020
"Interiority, accessing that inner life of a character, is really the main reason I’m interesting in writing at all. A plot isn’t interesting to me unless I know what the character is feeling about what’s happening. I view the thoughts of a character as a complicating force in a story."
From my interview with Megan at Full Stop: https://www.full-stop.net/2020/09/08/...
From my interview with Megan at Full Stop: https://www.full-stop.net/2020/09/08/...
September 27, 2024
I don't read a lot of short story books, but this book was really good. I thought the writing was great, and I wish I had figured out the connecting thread between the stories earlier than I did, because it would have been even more enjoyable book. So if you want to have the most enjoyable read of this book maybe go ahead and read a review that talks about the layout of the book so that you're clued in right from the start.
May 14, 2020
Well written characters that are both ordinary and interesting at the same time. One character reappears consistently which is a times a little distracting but ties the collection together in the end. I recommend it for fans of realistic fiction.
#IftheBodyAllowsIt #NetGalley
#IftheBodyAllowsIt #NetGalley
September 2, 2020
A deeply moving book that lingers long within your heart. It's a book to savor so take your time with this gem of a book. The stories weave one within the other engaging your senses. Not to be missed. Happy reading! #IftheBodyAllowsIt #NetGalley
December 11, 2020
You're a fool if don't read this collection and savor every moment. Can't wait to read AEROSOL expanded into a novel.
January 16, 2021
the best written and most evocative short story collection I've read in a very long time. I loved this one.
January 17, 2021
Very powerful and well written stories by one of America's most promising young authors.
December 12, 2023
A great interconnected short story collection with fully-formed characters and a unique point of view.
August 22, 2024
dnf
This was a DNF book for me. I don’t tend to get many DNF, but I just couldn’t get into this one.
This was a DNF book for me. I don’t tend to get many DNF, but I just couldn’t get into this one.
January 2, 2025
A phenomenal book by one of my favorite authors. I've been using "Heart" and "The Beast" and "Aerosol" and "Flour Baby" as materials in my fiction workshops and students love this work. The micro-fictions in this collection are excellent teaching tools, short enough for students to read and discuss on the spot. I was lucky to have the author do a class visit and reading, and she is an absolute pro and a delight.
July 6, 2021
The collection was interesting in theory but just boring in delivery. Idk maybe love stories are just not my thing, or maybe I've just read enough about white women's problems.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews