Overview
“A magnificent debut” (Laila Lalami) that explores loneliness and community, religion and repression, and the pleasure and pain of being a woman.
"In these carefully crafted stories, lonely people come face to face with the strange or the unsettling, leading to messy, horny, funny, and ultimately profound complications." -Laila Lalami, author of The Dream Hotel and The Other Americans
The 11 stories in Please Don't Touch the Body are at once dry and comic, grounded and surreal as they play deftly with genre and expectation to explore human alienation.
In the collection's first story, a Japanese woman finds healing in a secret life as a sex advice columnist after being fetishized by her white husband for decades, while in the fourth story, Ronald Reagan is reincarnated as a puppy and must cope with being squeezed, dropped, and controlled by his young, queer owner. And in “Thank You No Thank You” a young woman who grew up in a cloistered religious community and escaped to a liberal law school grapples with the rules she learned in childhood, the rules of her new life, and her actual desires as she vacations with her long-term boyfriend.
Together these inventive, emotionally rich stories reveal an incredible new vision and voice and a writer to watch.
While major retailers like Amazon may carry Please Don't Touch the Body (Stories), we specialize in bulk book sales and offer personalized service from our friendly, book-smart team based in Portland, Oregon. We’re proud to offer a Price Match Guarantee and a streamlined ordering experience from people who truly care.
We’re trusted by over 75,000 customers, many of whom return time and again. Want proof? Just check out our 25,000+ customer reviews—real feedback from people who love how we do business.
Prefer to talk to a real person? Our Book Specialists are here Monday–Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST and ready to help with your bulk order of Please Don't Touch the Body (Stories).