{"product_id":"please-dont-touch-the-body-stories","title":"Please Don't Touch the Body: Stories","description":"\n\u003ctable align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd class=\"productDetailSmallElements\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eBiographical Note\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eEmily Doyle \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of the debut collection \n\u003ci\u003ePlease Don't Touch the Body \u003c\/i\u003eand her forthcoming debut novel, \n\u003ci\u003eEncounter\u003c\/i\u003e. Her work has appeared in \n\u003ci\u003e Ploughshares\u003c\/i\u003e, the \n\u003ci\u003e Kenyon Review\u003c\/i\u003e, the \n\u003ci\u003e Sun\u003c\/i\u003e, and elsewhere, and she has received numerous awards, including the Abraham Lincoln Polonsky Endowed Award and the Bread Loaf-Rona Jaffe Foundation Participant Scholarship. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches at UC Riverside.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Doyle is a knockout writer.\" --\u003ci\u003eDebutiful, \"Most Anticipated Debut Books of 2026\"\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"I've had the pleasure of glimpsing Emily Doyle's muscular, heart-forward fiction in a writing workshop, and all I can say is \n\u003ci\u003ebrace yourselves. \u003c\/i\u003eThe body is front and center in these uniquely brewed stories, which range from surreal to poignant . . . This debut collection is thrillingly concerned with how we come to feel at ease in - or in \n\u003ci\u003epower of - \u003c\/i\u003eour meatsacks.\" -- \n\u003ci\u003eLiterary Hub, \"Most Anticipated Books of 2026\"\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Arresting . . . The stories are often bleak yet funny, using elements from science fiction and fantasy to highlight the difficulties characters have with communication . . . This surprising, genre-bending collection will appeal to lovers of grim humor and stories that feature characters learning to break out of constricting public and private roles.\" -- \n\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal, starred review\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"The 11 stories in Emily Doyle's bracing debut collection, \n\u003ci\u003ePlease Don't Touch the Body\u003c\/i\u003e, vibrate with undercurrents of guilty desire, delicious rage, and the bewildering mysteries of the underworld . . . Motherhood and its discontents loom large in this mesmerizing debut story collection combining high drama with supernatural mystery and characters spanning a diverse demographic range.\" -- \n\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness, starred review\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Doyle's evocative collection . . . showcases ghosts in all forms . . . Doyle's debut embraces the strange and even stranger . . . Perfect for readers who appreciate oddities and dark humor with a dash of [science fiction].\" -- \n\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Surprises abound in Doyle's strange and sublime debut collection . . . [Doyle] brings her eccentric characters' humanity into poignant relief . . . Readers will find much to love in these dynamic and heartfelt stories.\" -- \n\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A magnificent debut. 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. Emily Doyle is a rising star.\" -- \n\u003ci\u003eLaila Lalami, Pulitzer-Prize finalist and bestselling author of THE DREAM HOTEL\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"The stories of \n\u003ci\u003ePlease Don't Touch the Body\u003c\/i\u003e are stunning-wonderfully dry yet musical, with potent characterizations and sad humor.\" -- \n\u003ci\u003eCharmaine Craig, National Book Award Longlisted author of MISS BURMA\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003ePlease Don't Touch the Body\u003c\/i\u003e drew me in with the glitter of a curious idea or question and its big-heartedness kept me reading. Emily Doyle offers up a thoughtful collection that studies the secret, hungry spaces within our loud human lives.\" -- \n\u003ci\u003eRamona Ausubel, author of THE LAST ANIMAL and A GUIDE TO BEING BORN\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"What strange, beautiful, and deftly written stories. Here are women suffocating in their passivity, teetering between the lives that had been forced upon them and the lives they've yet to choose. Doyle is a writer to watch.\" -- \n\u003ci\u003eRita Chang-Eppig, author of DEEP AS THE SKY, RED AS THE SEA\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Open-heartedly honest, fiercely intelligent, and wonderfully fresh . . . \n\u003ci\u003ePlease Don't Touch the Body\u003c\/i\u003e not only surprises and delights, it sings.\" -- \n\u003ci\u003eJessie Ren Marshall, author of WOMEN! IN! PERIL!\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003ePlease Don't Touch the Body\u003c\/i\u003e is heartbreaking and hopeful, with prose that is spare when necessary and bountiful elsewhere.\" -- \n\u003ci\u003eJosh Emmons, author of THE LOSS OF LEON MEED\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"An electrifying debut that thrums with dark humor, desire, and the uncanny ache of being alive. These effervescent stories are sharp as a scalpel and tender as a bruise. With prose that dazzles and disarms, Emily Doyle renders alienation and longing with both wit and grace, inviting us to experience the body - its hungers, its betrayals, its beauty - in all its unruly splendor.\" -- \n\u003ci\u003eAlex Espinoza, author of THE SONS OF EL REY\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher Marketing\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"A magnificent debut\" (Laila Lalami) that explores loneliness and community, religion and repression, and the pleasure and pain of womanhood.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy turns tender and irreverent, the 11 genre-bending stories in \u003ci\u003ePlease Don't Touch the Body\u003c\/i\u003e are thrillingly concerned with the devastation-and power-of being alive today. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 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. 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 grapples with the rules she learned in her religious childhood, the freedoms of her new and more liberal life, and her actual desires as she vacations with her long-term boyfriend. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTogether these inventive, emotionally rich stories reveal an incredible new vision and \"a writer to watch\" (Rita Chang-Eppig). \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations:\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/span\u003e 05\/01\/2026 pg. 117 (EAN 9781639736256, Hardcover) - *Starred Review\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eBooklist\u003c\/span\u003e 06\/01\/2026 (EAN 9781639736256, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/span\u003e 12\/30\/0001 (EAN 9781639736256, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/span\u003e 06\/29\/2026 (EAN 9781639736256, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51496146895126,"sku":"9781639736256","price":32.39,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0857\/9910\/8886\/files\/9781639736256.jpg?v=1783053979","url":"https:\/\/lusper.myshopify.com\/products\/please-dont-touch-the-body-stories","provider":"Lusperbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}