The Body Farm

From the winner of the Barnes Noble Discover Great New Writers Award and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize come eleven bold new stories that examine the human body and the natural world, and the subtle yet profound ways this relationship can change as we make our journey through life

The body cannot tell any lies. From birth to death, and through all the transitions in between, the body stores our knowledge and history, our feelings and experiences. Our betrayals. These insightful and empathetic stories, from the critically acclaimed author of The Last Animal , shine new light on our physical vessels set against our physical world, two landscapes irretrievably connected and altered over time.

An etymologist solves cold cases and upholds a sense of justice by studying the decay of corpses in a field and the insect life they develop. A caregiver obsesses over a stained-glass lampshade to deal with the elegiac losses of Alzheimer’s. A sister with webbed fingers highlights the often-universal belief that our siblings just might be creatures brought forth from the deep. The memory of a scent evokes the haunting legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These eleven stories display Abby Geni’s great capacity to take us into the lives and experiences of others to scrutinize the physical birth, childhood, transition, mental health, trauma, aging, illness, love, sex, and death.