{"product_id":"body-friend-9781639734511","title":"Body Friend","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA potent novel about chronic illness and the circular nature of recovery\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e-s\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ehortlisted for the major Australian literary award The Stella Prize.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBut 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThroughout 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eKatherine Brabon\u003c\/b\u003e is the award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe Memory Artist\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Shut Ins\u003c\/i\u003e. 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. \u003ci\u003eBody Friend\u003c\/i\u003e is her U.S. debut.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50599600455954,"sku":"9781639734511","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_6149a81b-cc2a-4ea7-aa08-2c7eee9ca50d.jpg?v=1732202725","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/body-friend-9781639734511","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}