Acts of Service

A bold and unflinchingly sexy (Vogue) debut novel about a young woman who follows her desires into a world of pleasure, decadence, and privilege, unraveling everything she thought she knew about sex . . . and herself.

One of the most entertaining books about sex I ve ever read . . . The perfect read for fans of Raven Leilani and Ottessa Moshfegh, this is a book that will have people talking. BuzzFeed

Anytime I want, I can forsake this dinner party and jump into real life. Eve Babitz

Eve has an adoring girlfriend, an impulsive streak, and a secret fear that she s wasting her brief youth with just one person. So one evening she posts some nudes online. This is how Eve meets Olivia, and through Olivia the charismatic Nathan. Despite her better instincts, the three soon begin a relationship one that disturbs Eve as much as it enthralls her.

As each act of their complicated, three-way affair unfolds across a cold and glittering New York, Eve is forced to confront the questions that most consume her: What do we bring to sex? What does it reveal of ourselves, and one another? And how do we reconcile what we want with what we think we should want?

In the way only great fiction can, Acts of Service takes between its teeth the contradictions written all over our ideas of sex and sexuality. At once juicy and intellectually challenging, sacred and profane, Lillian Fishman s riveting debut is bold, unabashed, and required reading of the most pleasurable sort.

“A young woman follows her exhibitionist streak to uncharted new territory in this bold and unflinchingly sexy novel, engaging in a three-way sexual relationship that teaches her more than she could have imagined about her own desire.”—Vogue

“I was completely absorbed by this radical, daring, and bracing novel about a so-cold and yet so-intimate world where safety and pleasure can be found only in the most unlikely and unpredictable of places. It is a book of exciting, provocative complexity, and, for me, it made the human creature feel like something new.”—Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be? and Pure Colour

“Acts of Service doesn’t kiss you first, it gets right to it—depicting the liquid frequencies of need and power with a thoughtful, savage eye.”—Raven Leilani, author of Luster

“This fascinating novel, which will be read as a defense of libertinism, paradoxically turns out to be a book of exquisite moral refinement and almost intimidating elegance.”—Edmund White, author of A Boy’s Own Story and States of Desire

“Acts of Service doesn’t shy away from asking big questions about the nature of attraction. All this, but with a great deal of page-turning pleasure.”—Gary Shteyngart, author of Our Country Friends and Super Sad Love Love Story

“A kind of supercharged combo of Sally Rooney and Ottessa Moshfegh, and as smart as Joan Didion, Fishman isn’t just a brilliant writer—she’s a brilliant feeler, a great thinker. She has the gift we open books for.”—David Lipsky, author of The Art Fair

“Months after turning the final page, I’m still thinking about this fiercely wily novel.”—Heidi Julavits, author of The Folded Clock

“In stunning prose, Lillian Fishman explores sex and the self with delicious seriousness and sensuality. I didn’t want it to end.”—Saskia Vogel, author of Permission

“Taut, thorny, and sublimely fraught, Acts of Service stares straight into the white-hot center of desire with a cool, incisive eye. This book is electric.” —Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun

“I cannot recall the last time I felt this exhilarated and transformed by a novel. Acts of Service electrified both my mind and body. How can a story feel so smart and carnal at once?”—Sanaë Lemoine, author of The Margot Affair

“Seamlessly written, sedate and subtle and so pleasurable, and quite enrapturing on a psychological level. . . This book opens space for a new kind of precision and intelligence that gives the amoral opulence of desire its rightful place.” —Niamh Campbell, author of This Happy and We Were Young

Autorentext

Lillian Fishman

Klappentext

A “bold and unflinchingly sexy” (Vogue) debut novel about a young woman who follows her desires into a world of pleasure, decadence, and privilege, unraveling everything she thought she knew about sex . . . and herself.
 
“One of the most entertaining books about sex I’ve ever read . . . The perfect read for fans of Raven Leilani and Ottessa Moshfegh, this is a book that will have people talking.”—BuzzFeed

“A sex masterpiece.”—The Guardian

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Hollywood Reporter

“Anytime I want, I can forsake this dinner party and jump into real life.”—Eve Babitz

Eve has an adoring girlfriend, an impulsive streak, and a secret fear that she’s wasting her brief youth with just one person. So one evening she posts some nudes online. This is how Eve meets Olivia, and through Olivia the charismatic Nathan. Despite her better instincts, the three soon begin a relationship—one that disturbs Eve as much as it enthralls her. 

As each act of their complicated, three-way affair unfolds across a cold and glittering New York, Eve is forced to confront the questions that most consume her: What do we bring to sex? What does it reveal of ourselves, and one another? And how do we reconcile what we want with what we think we should want? 

In the way only great fiction can, Acts of Service takes between its teeth the contradictions written all over our ideas of sex and sexuality. At once juicy and intellectually challenging, sacred and profane, Lillian Fishman’s riveting debut is bold, unabashed, and required reading of the most pleasurable sort.

Leseprobe
1

I had hundreds of nudes stored in my phone, but I’d never sent them to anyone. The shots themselves were fairly standard: my faceless body floating in bedrooms and bathrooms, in mirrors. Whenever I took one I fell in love with it for a moment. Standing there, naked and hunched over my little screen, I felt overwhelmed with the urge to show someone this new iteration of my body. But each photo seemed more private and impossible than the last.

You could see in them something beyond desire, harder and more humiliating. While I was brushing my teeth or stepping out of the shower I would see my own body and find myself overwhelmed with a sense of urgency and disuse. My body was crying out that I was not fulfilling my purpose. I was meant to have sex—­probably with some wild number of people. Maybe it was more savage than that, that I was meant not to f but to get fed. The purpose of my life at large remained mysterious, but I had come around to the idea that my purpose as a body was simple.

I was too fearful of the world to go out and get f*ed, too plagued by hang-­ups, memories of shitty girlfriends, fears of violence. Instead I took photos. In the photos my body looked stunning, unblemished, often arched as though trying to escape the top of the frame. I was like a spinster full of anxieties and repressions, charged with chaperoning a young girl who could not fathom the injustice of the arrangement.

One night when I was feeling exceptionally beautiful and isolated I decided to start sharing the nudes online. I used a website that ano…