FAT SWIM

Short fiction from the author of Housemates (2024).

The story that opens this collection begins with 8-year-old Alice noticing a “parade of bright bodies” walking down her street as she looks out the window of the apartment she shares with her father. This is a parade of fat women, and they are going swimming. Alice is intrigued by this display because she is fat herself. The next time she sees them heading for the rec center pool, she joins them. The prose here is particular and slightly distant and works beautifully to convey the feeling of being a child among adults, thrilled to be included but only half understanding what’s being said. Eisenberg shows a child finding joy in embodiment and community and ends on a note that is wistful without being maudlin. The final lines hint at what’s to come in the stories ahead—stories in which bodies and desire are a central focus. Unfortunately, nothing else in this collection measures up to the promise of “Fat Swim.” These works feel formless. It’s often difficult to discern why they start where they start and end where they end. There’s a surfeit of minutiae—lengthy descriptions of clothing and decor, precise cataloging of drinks and body parts—but we seldom get to know the people buried under these details. Most of the characters in these stories are queer. Some are trans. Some are polyamorous. There are women. There are men. There are a couple of nonbinary folks. Except for these differences, though, they feel weirdly interchangeable. The stories are connected in that characters reappear but seeing them again is like bumping into someone you know you’ve met once but don’t quite remember. Several of them feature in the very long final story. In the end, though, we’re left with a ponderous metatextual coda rather than a deeper sense of who these characters are.

One terrific story and enough additional stories to make a book.