The Trouble with Language

by Rebecca Fishow

Fiction. Women's Studies. Winner of the Holland Prize for Fiction. Weaving together fabulist invention and gritty realism, Rebecca Fishow's debut collection, THE TROUBLE WITH LANGUAGE, unearths stories of men and women whose traumatic experiences make way for dazzlingly cerebral lives. A young man finds a severed head at his door years after his mother takes her own life. A married couple initiates a bloody jailbreak. A young woman poses nude for strangers in attempts to pay for mental health treatment, while another finds herself rapidly shrinking in a hotel room. No two of these surprising and playful fictions are alike, and each encourages us to peek behind life's curtains to discover more bizarre, enchanting, and joyful truths. Wondrously assured, THE TROUBLE WITH LANGUAGE heralds the arrival of a major talent.

192 pages, Hardcover

Published November 24, 2020

Reviews

[Allison Renner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard Fishow read at a book launch and was blown away by her writing style. I ordered her book before the event was over. As soon as it arrived, I sat and read it in a day, and am already wanting to read it again. The stories are so delightfully strange that they seem almost too real, and there is always something to notice hiding beneath the words that are written.

[Matt Briggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading The Trouble With Language by Rebecca Fishow. Whew. I’ve been going through a reading drought. It was published by TRNSFR Books. A beautiful book. If you like Sam Lipsyte or Rachel Glaser, close observers of how weird the things we say are, then you’ll like this.