Fat Swim

by Emma Copley Eisenberg

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.

Genres: Short Stories, LGBT

Unknown Binding

Expected publication April 28, 2026

About the author

Emma 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.

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Bean Bull · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

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

[thecriticalreader · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Alcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - I like Eisenberg’s writing style and the way she is able to explore the concepts of hunger, body image, and fatphobia in non-obvious ways. I originally felt like the links between the stories were weak, but I enjoyed the way the final one tied the characters together. That being said, some of these stories were much stronger than others. I also think that reading “Her Body and Other Parties” before this tainted this book for me, as it was another collection of short stories focused on the body and womanhood, that I found more compelling.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for the advanced copy.

[Remi]

i think this could be my therapy

*thank you to Hogarth for the ARC*

[James B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley and Hogarth for the ebook. These stories, set mostly in and around Philadelphia, are fascinating for their study of body awareness and sexuality. It starts with a young girl whose body is changing, as she watches a group of heavyset women set off to the local pool, with their heads held high and joy in their every step. Another moving story is about a college long distance runner who starts a cosmetic company with two fellow runners, but is asked to leave the company as they are too busy to run now and she gains more and more weight. There’s also the trans librarian who is hired by an elderly, famous science fiction writer, only to find that their job is mostly to go through apps to find men for him to sleep with. It’s queerness and body shapes told from the inside looking out, but at times it’s from the outside looking in as one mother tries to understand her child’s polyamory.

[sky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of short stories about fat, queer, and BIPOC characters that intertwine together set in Philadelphia. I really enjoyed how each of the stories talked about characters and different queer identities like lesbians, trans, and poly. Also the way that weight, especially overweight characters were talked and were just there casually but also a part of who they are.
Sadly I didn’t feel like the story intertwined as much as I thought they would have. I wasn’t as intrigued with most of these stories either sadly, I feel like a lot of the stories just felt like one shots so you didn’t really get the characters.
Thank you Netgalley and Random House for this eArc in exchange for an honest review.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was so incredibly Queer, which is probably one of the only aspects I truly loved about it. Fat Swim is a collection of Short Stories featuring Queer stories about bodies, sex and relationships. I found myself pitying every character in the stories, they all seemed to be so lost and just going through the motions of life. Which I think was the point, little glimpses of people living their lives the best way they were able. Nothing extraordinary, just real and raw.
My favorite story was the last one, with the call backs to the previous stories.


Thank you to netgalley and Hogarth for a ARC

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

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!

[Lydia Hephzibah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25

setting: Pennsylvania
rep: queer, fat, and BIPOC protagonists and side characters

This is pitched as a collection of linked stories but I wish the links had been a little more solid as they're often quite tenuous. really appreciated the fat and queer rep here, though most of the stories felt a bit unfinished or underdeveloped to me. the most interesting was probably the last one as it felt like it broke with convention a little and I was intrigued by the sensation camp and the descriptions of various senses.

[Patty Ramirez · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Had a good time with this, even though I didn't really see a big connection between the stories. The last story was my least favorite, because I could see where it was headed and was not really surprised by it.

But I would give this author another try.

Thank you to Hogarth and the author for providing a free copy of this book through NetGalley.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great short story collection with interconnected pieces that come together at the end. If you’re into queer lit that plays with form and isn’t afraid to get a little strange, this is absolutely worth picking up.

[Liv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow wow WOW! thank you Hogarth and Netgalley for one of my most anticipated books of the year!

[Keshia Bigler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an ARC from Random House on NetGalley, and this is my honest review.

I absolutely loved this book. Fat Swim is so bold and unapologetic in how it centers bodies that are not seen as “the norm.” These stories put marginalized bodies right in the spotlight, taking up space in a way we rarely get to see. There is no shrinking, no softening, no apologizing.

Emma writes with such honesty about desire, shame, identity, and the complicated ways we move through the world in bodies that other people often feel entitled to judge or define. Some of the stories are heavy and emotional, but they never feel exploitative. They feel true and sit with the messy parts of being alive. It stayed with me in that way only really good story collections do. Heavy, yes, but also so damn affirming.

I loved this book. Highly recommend.