Finalist for the 2021 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short
Story Collection
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First
Fiction
"A House Is a Body will not simply be talked about as one of the
greatest short story collections of the 2020s; it will change the way
all stories--short and long--are told, written, and consumed. There is
nothing, no emotion, no tiny morsel of memory, no touch, that this book
does not take seriously. Yet, A House Is a Body might be the most fun
I've ever had in a short story collection." --Kiese Laymon, author of
Heavy
Dreams collide with reality, modernity with antiquity, and myth with
identity in the twelve arresting stories of A House Is a Body. Set in
the United States and India, Swamy's characters grapple with motherhood,
relationships, and their bodies to reveal small but intense internal
moments of beauty, pain, and power that contain the world.
In "Earthly Pleasures," a young painter living alone in San Francisco
begins a secret romance with one of India's biggest celebrities, and
desire and ego are laid bare. In "A Simple Composition," a husband's
professional crisis leads to his wife's discovery of a dark, ecstatic
joy. And in the title story, an exhausted mother watches, hypnotized by
fear, as a California wildfire approaches her home. Immersive and
assured, provocative and probing, these are stories written with the
edge and precision of a knife blade.
A House Is a Body introduces a bold and original voice in fiction,
from a writer at the start of a stellar career.
Don't miss Shruti Swamy's debut novel, The Archer (available September
7, 2021), which has already been longlisted for the Center for Fiction
First Novel Prize.
