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Fat Swim
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.
Unknown Binding
First published April 28, 2026
About the author
Emma Copley Eisenberg
8 books589 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 259 reviews
April 27, 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!
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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).
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 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.
August 7, 2026
This was surprising, raw, human, authentic, and just a fun intriguing ride even if a few of the stories weren’t nearly as strong as the others. The one titled fat swim and camp sensation were near perfect and by far the best, but beauty was also great and truly all but maybe one or two were more than a bit enjoyable. It’s not just about weight and size but body struggles, appreciations, and curiosities all wrapped up together. This is the first piece of Emma’s literature I’ve read but it won’t be the last. This was out of my regular reading, but I’m so glad I stumbled across it as a summer read. 3.75/5
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.
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.
April 7, 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?
September 4, 2026
(rounded up from 2.5)
I enjoyed the first few stories more than the last ones, since they go from being about body image and queerness to somehow being about incest for shock value. Some of these were interesting and thought-provoking, while the others got a bit lost in the woods, IMO.
I enjoyed the first few stories more than the last ones, since they go from being about body image and queerness to somehow being about incest for shock value. Some of these were interesting and thought-provoking, while the others got a bit lost in the woods, IMO.
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.
August 12, 2026
I adored the title story, enjoyed a few along the way, and really loved the ending paragraphs. Of course I love that so many of these stories take place in my neighborhood on streets that I recognize solely by description. But it’s hard to connect with many of the stories because it just feels like caricatures of progressive queer people. Sometimes that is my experience of living in West Philly ngl, but it didn’t feel like a tongue in cheek representation of that. It felt earnest and intentionally provocative in a way that was hard to connect with most of the characters or dialogue.
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.
October 2, 2026
A queer collection, in more ways than one.
I did like this. Many of the stories challenged me to look past the literal words on the page to see the larger machinations of the author's choices, and how every character fit together. All of these stories were presented in this sort of weird, off-beat faux-calm tone that unsettled me, but in the end, I'm not sure that any of the themes were all that profound. Sure, it was dressed up in weird/interesting premises (some of which i felt were weirdly fetishistic/pedophilic/insestuous for mere shock value) but the intention underneath didn't seem to tread any new ground.
I wrote down a few thoughts for each story, and my star ratings. To be honest, I was planning on way more in-depth reviews but after a while I kept saying the same things about each one, so I think one or two sentences will suffice. Some reviews will be longer than others.
fat swim 4★
I originally rated this three, and then based on all the others in the collection I bumped this up, so that's probably a bad sign. This was maybe the tamest of the collection, but I did like it. Probably the most profound thing about it was the zing of recognition with all of these core fat childhood experiences, but for me that's not enough for a story to feel complete. Maybe other readers experienced catharsis, but not me.
I did love the MC's interactions with the women at the pool, role models for what her life could look like in the freedom of adulthood. But in general, even though this is no fault of the author, I dislike child pov characters in adult stories. Like it just causes weird language to describe basic things (it feels painful, but a good kind of painful). Ok. Lets use our big girl words.
sundays 3★
This one was pretty unmemorable. The immediate direct-to-reader is arrresting, but it wasn't maintained. This story was also where I first realized that this all was going to be a bit pretentious, which annoyed me. It's fine if you back it up but obviously I don't think Copley Eisenberg did. It's a lot of ruminatinon that doesn't lead anywhere in particular. Left me feeling restless.
ray's happy birthday bar 2★
This one was extremely meh to me. The most salient parts were about the main character's thoughts and feelings about giving her child up for adoption in the past, though that wasn't the main point of the piece. The rocky relationship between Tracy and Gin was fine to read, but I thought there were much more interesting ones in the other stories.
The Dan Graves Situation 4★
SUPER interesting premise. About a professor in a mental health crisis, and the coworker who has to check up on him. It gave a lot of grit and humanity to someone who by all acounts is a bad person (predatory, biggoted) and we're allowed to sit in that and consider all its implications, how it affects the POV character without stopping at the casting judgement part. But none of that negates the harm, which is why I thought the ending with burning the letters was so well done.
beauty 3★
I saw a lot of goodreads reviews on the first page pointed to this one as a stand-out, and that sort of surprises me. I found all of the ruminations about the MC's videos to be very surface level, and the relationship between her and the teenager just made me uncomfortable. Doesn't mean it was morally wrong to write it, but there was a weird predatory edge for no reason I could discern. Though without that, it is interesting to put into conversation with the first story, fat swim, as the pov of the adult on the other side of the coin.
mama 4★
This also had an interesting premise, a mother coming to grips with her child's polyamorous lesbian relationship. I enjoyed an outsider's perspecitve. I felt in this one more than some of the others the moves Copley Eisenberg was making with with hunger, desire, and the corporal body. But I really could not get past the barrier of the writing being so frank and sexual. It's a bizarre combination between mother and daughter. I did not like it. Disgusting for no reason.
i want a friend 2★
Very unmemorable. I get and in some ways relate to the lonliness of our MC, but I really didn't feel like I gleaned anything new or exciting from this. All of these stories have the problem of rumination without anything concrete to chew on, but I felt it keenly here.
lanternfly 4★
I was surprised by how much I ended up liking this. As with The Dan Graves Sitaution, an older skeevy guy (why are these the best ones?) who hires an assistant to be his companion as he writes his new book. Through our MC, a trans man, I felt that Copley pushed her themes about body and transformation to new places whereas other stories sometimes treaded the same ground. Also, it may seem basic, but I was genuinely interested in the plot of the story and was propelled to see what happened next. A low bar, but I'd say the majority of the collection did not clear it. Lots of rumination, not much action.
swiffer girl 3★
From browsing goodreads, this seems to be another fan favorite but I didn't find it that different than the rest of the collection. I didn't realize I was missing a strong sibling relationship until it appeared here, so that was nice to read, but all of her drama about having a baby with her partner was lost to me. As with a lot of other aspects in this collection, the vulgarity provided shock value, but little else.
camp sensation 2★
This should be the best piece in the collection because it's the cap, and the author devotes a full fourth of the page span to it. Instead, it only validated a lot of the restless feelings I had towards the collection as a whole, and made me wonder what the point of all of this was. The premise, like all of the other premises, was weird, sure. A camp that assigns a different sense to each participant, and the weird power struggles between the two administators. But the lesson at the end of the day is a pretty basic one: the tempation to cut off sensation is tempting, but ultimately fruitless. Like yeah? A basic conclusion dresssed up in a whole lot of nonsense.
conclusion
As you can probably tell from my star ratings of each story and the general sentiments contained in each review, I felt very meh towards this. I kept waiting for one story to really capture me, but none really met that threshold. I didn't give a single one 5 stars! That's pretty brutal. And I also didn't dole out any one star, which only indicates that this entire thing really pulled very little emotion out of me at all. At least with one star ratings, I care enough to find fault.
Cameos of characters from other stories were cool, if not terribly relevant. For example, one of the campers in the final story was a side character in an earlier piece. Probably this would have meant more to me if I had connected with any of the characters, but all the pretention really kept me at a distance.
The final pages where the author directly confronts herself surprised me. I guess it was good because it's meant to confront, and confront it did- the point being that no one can escape their body, that the body has to do with everything, even the process of writing this book, but to me it indicated that the themes had not been built strongly enough within the stories for it to need that addendum. It would be interesting to see how it's formatted in the physical book because on audio there was no delineation between the last story and final section, so it was even more jarring.
but, let's do a round-up!
favorite story: lanternfly
least favorite story: i want a friend
weirdest story: swiffer girl? i don't know, the competition is stiff
A little bummed this one didn't work better for me because I was so excited to dissect each individual story and dive in with all the reviews. I've done it with some other collections, but none very recently. Hopefully I'll find a better fitting one in the future.
I did like this. Many of the stories challenged me to look past the literal words on the page to see the larger machinations of the author's choices, and how every character fit together. All of these stories were presented in this sort of weird, off-beat faux-calm tone that unsettled me, but in the end, I'm not sure that any of the themes were all that profound. Sure, it was dressed up in weird/interesting premises (some of which i felt were weirdly fetishistic/pedophilic/insestuous for mere shock value) but the intention underneath didn't seem to tread any new ground.
I wrote down a few thoughts for each story, and my star ratings. To be honest, I was planning on way more in-depth reviews but after a while I kept saying the same things about each one, so I think one or two sentences will suffice. Some reviews will be longer than others.
fat swim 4★
I originally rated this three, and then based on all the others in the collection I bumped this up, so that's probably a bad sign. This was maybe the tamest of the collection, but I did like it. Probably the most profound thing about it was the zing of recognition with all of these core fat childhood experiences, but for me that's not enough for a story to feel complete. Maybe other readers experienced catharsis, but not me.
I did love the MC's interactions with the women at the pool, role models for what her life could look like in the freedom of adulthood. But in general, even though this is no fault of the author, I dislike child pov characters in adult stories. Like it just causes weird language to describe basic things (it feels painful, but a good kind of painful). Ok. Lets use our big girl words.
sundays 3★
This one was pretty unmemorable. The immediate direct-to-reader is arrresting, but it wasn't maintained. This story was also where I first realized that this all was going to be a bit pretentious, which annoyed me. It's fine if you back it up but obviously I don't think Copley Eisenberg did. It's a lot of ruminatinon that doesn't lead anywhere in particular. Left me feeling restless.
ray's happy birthday bar 2★
This one was extremely meh to me. The most salient parts were about the main character's thoughts and feelings about giving her child up for adoption in the past, though that wasn't the main point of the piece. The rocky relationship between Tracy and Gin was fine to read, but I thought there were much more interesting ones in the other stories.
The Dan Graves Situation 4★
SUPER interesting premise. About a professor in a mental health crisis, and the coworker who has to check up on him. It gave a lot of grit and humanity to someone who by all acounts is a bad person (predatory, biggoted) and we're allowed to sit in that and consider all its implications, how it affects the POV character without stopping at the casting judgement part. But none of that negates the harm, which is why I thought the ending with burning the letters was so well done.
beauty 3★
I saw a lot of goodreads reviews on the first page pointed to this one as a stand-out, and that sort of surprises me. I found all of the ruminations about the MC's videos to be very surface level, and the relationship between her and the teenager just made me uncomfortable. Doesn't mean it was morally wrong to write it, but there was a weird predatory edge for no reason I could discern. Though without that, it is interesting to put into conversation with the first story, fat swim, as the pov of the adult on the other side of the coin.
mama 4★
This also had an interesting premise, a mother coming to grips with her child's polyamorous lesbian relationship. I enjoyed an outsider's perspecitve. I felt in this one more than some of the others the moves Copley Eisenberg was making with with hunger, desire, and the corporal body. But I really could not get past the barrier of the writing being so frank and sexual. It's a bizarre combination between mother and daughter. I did not like it. Disgusting for no reason.
i want a friend 2★
Very unmemorable. I get and in some ways relate to the lonliness of our MC, but I really didn't feel like I gleaned anything new or exciting from this. All of these stories have the problem of rumination without anything concrete to chew on, but I felt it keenly here.
lanternfly 4★
I was surprised by how much I ended up liking this. As with The Dan Graves Sitaution, an older skeevy guy (why are these the best ones?) who hires an assistant to be his companion as he writes his new book. Through our MC, a trans man, I felt that Copley pushed her themes about body and transformation to new places whereas other stories sometimes treaded the same ground. Also, it may seem basic, but I was genuinely interested in the plot of the story and was propelled to see what happened next. A low bar, but I'd say the majority of the collection did not clear it. Lots of rumination, not much action.
swiffer girl 3★
From browsing goodreads, this seems to be another fan favorite but I didn't find it that different than the rest of the collection. I didn't realize I was missing a strong sibling relationship until it appeared here, so that was nice to read, but all of her drama about having a baby with her partner was lost to me. As with a lot of other aspects in this collection, the vulgarity provided shock value, but little else.
camp sensation 2★
This should be the best piece in the collection because it's the cap, and the author devotes a full fourth of the page span to it. Instead, it only validated a lot of the restless feelings I had towards the collection as a whole, and made me wonder what the point of all of this was. The premise, like all of the other premises, was weird, sure. A camp that assigns a different sense to each participant, and the weird power struggles between the two administators. But the lesson at the end of the day is a pretty basic one: the tempation to cut off sensation is tempting, but ultimately fruitless. Like yeah? A basic conclusion dresssed up in a whole lot of nonsense.
conclusion
As you can probably tell from my star ratings of each story and the general sentiments contained in each review, I felt very meh towards this. I kept waiting for one story to really capture me, but none really met that threshold. I didn't give a single one 5 stars! That's pretty brutal. And I also didn't dole out any one star, which only indicates that this entire thing really pulled very little emotion out of me at all. At least with one star ratings, I care enough to find fault.
Cameos of characters from other stories were cool, if not terribly relevant. For example, one of the campers in the final story was a side character in an earlier piece. Probably this would have meant more to me if I had connected with any of the characters, but all the pretention really kept me at a distance.
The final pages where the author directly confronts herself surprised me. I guess it was good because it's meant to confront, and confront it did- the point being that no one can escape their body, that the body has to do with everything, even the process of writing this book, but to me it indicated that the themes had not been built strongly enough within the stories for it to need that addendum. It would be interesting to see how it's formatted in the physical book because on audio there was no delineation between the last story and final section, so it was even more jarring.
but, let's do a round-up!
favorite story: lanternfly
least favorite story: i want a friend
weirdest story: swiffer girl? i don't know, the competition is stiff
A little bummed this one didn't work better for me because I was so excited to dissect each individual story and dive in with all the reviews. I've done it with some other collections, but none very recently. Hopefully I'll find a better fitting one in the future.
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.
June 30, 2026
Very weird (and sexually creepy) short stories
July 4, 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.
September 19, 2026
Best short story collection I’ve read in a long time
June 9, 2026
i loved this very much, especially the final story
September 20, 2026
i feel like just as each of the stories in the collection were starting to pique my interest, they ended. even for short stories, they felt underdeveloped.
November 20, 2025
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.
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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.”
October 14, 2026
At 47, I’m still getting to know myself as a reader, and here I’ve discovered that I’m not a fan of short stories. This was an anticipated read for me due to the title and cover, and the first story delivered in real ways. Then the stories became “too literary” - I’m sorry, that is a reality (for me) - and I was no longer enjoying my read. I could feel the characters and stories intersecting but it was difficult tracking who, what, when, and where.
It was a lot of fun to have the setting placed in and around Philly. It’s always a *woohoo* surprise to read the name of a familiar locale. Also, the ending had real potential for me as someone who strives deeply for somatic practices. Ultimately, I disagreed on how the author dissected each sense and faulted the character for being out of touch with one specific sense (ie - hearing, touch, etc).
“We are here because we are trying to awaken you to the wild opportunity that is the body, that mystery which is given to every human animal to solve. What are the things every human animal possesses, what is the wisdom that originates in your body, and what blocks you from accessing this magic every single day?“ (page 182)
Oh, and this line…. HIT ME. “You were not meant to feel nothing.” (page 201)
It was a lot of fun to have the setting placed in and around Philly. It’s always a *woohoo* surprise to read the name of a familiar locale. Also, the ending had real potential for me as someone who strives deeply for somatic practices. Ultimately, I disagreed on how the author dissected each sense and faulted the character for being out of touch with one specific sense (ie - hearing, touch, etc).
“We are here because we are trying to awaken you to the wild opportunity that is the body, that mystery which is given to every human animal to solve. What are the things every human animal possesses, what is the wisdom that originates in your body, and what blocks you from accessing this magic every single day?“ (page 182)
Oh, and this line…. HIT ME. “You were not meant to feel nothing.” (page 201)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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.
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