A potent novel about chronic illness and the circular nature of recovery-shortlisted for the major Australian literary award The Stella Prize.

“The novel's emotional core is heated by lyrical musings on the body and its relationship to language and narrative . . . This is an illuminating reflection on what it means to live with pain.” —Publishers Weekly

“An unforgettable study in intimacy. Expect to be wowed.” —Oprah Daily

In the wake of a major operation, a twenty-eight-year-old woman with chronic illness has twelve weeks to heal, or rather, to acclimate to her new body and prepare herself to leave the routines, comforts, and interiority of her convalescence. In the hydrotherapy pool, she meets Frida, a young woman who looks strikingly similar to her and is also in a state of recovery. But Frida sees her chronic illness as something to overcome and her body as something to control. She adores the pool and pushes the narrator and herself toward an active life, relentlessly pursuing the prevailing narrative of illness followed by recovery.

But the narrator also happens upon Sylvia, another young, convalescing woman, resting on a bench in a nearby park, which the narrator frequents on the days she is too ill to swim. Sylvia understands her body and the narrator's in a different way, gently encouraging her to rest, to perceive illness as something happening to her, but which does not define her.

Throughout the narrator's recovery, these women shadow, overlap, mirror, and complicate one another, and what begins as two seemingly undemanding friendships is challenged by what each woman asks of the narrator, of themselves, and of their bodies.

“Never before have I read a book with such a compelling investigation of illness and pain, recovery and rest. Brabon writes with unwavering insight and intelligence; Body Friend inspires me to better understand my own friendships, my own life in a body. I tore through it. I will be thinking about this book for a long, long time.” —Anna Hogeland, author of The Long Answer

“A compelling and deeply insightful reckoning with illness, intimacy, estrangement and control, Body Friend is a novel of rare grace . . . Her sentences are a tonic, offering the clarity and exquisite pleasure of swimming in calm, cool water.” —Madelaine Lucas, author of Thirst for Salt

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Katherine Brabon is the award-winning author of The Memory Artist and The Shut Ins. Her work has appeared in Vogue, Australian Book Review, the Australian Financial Review, the Saturday Paper, and she is a regular contributor to Melbourne’s Lindsay magazine. Her writing has been supported by Art Omi New York and the UNESCO Cities of Literature International Residency. She lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. Body Friend is her U.S. debut.

 

 

Madelaine Lucas is the author of the debut novel Thirst for Salt, which was named a New York Times’ Editors choice, and a senior editor of NOON. Originally from Sydney, Australia, she teaches fiction at Columbia University and lives in the Hudson Valley with her family.

 

 

 

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