Genre Fiction
![Lillian Fishman - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B09C8ZCZP5.jpg)
Acts of Service: A Novel
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022-BuzzFeed, Vogue, Electric Lit, The Millions, Lit Hub
A provocative debut of sex and sexuality-"depicting the liquid frequencies of need and power with a thoughtful, savage eye" (Raven Leilani, author of Luster)-as a twentysomething New Yorker pursues a sexual freedom that follows no other lines than her own desire.
"Radical, daring, and bracing . . .for me,it made the human creature feel like something new."-Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be? and Pure Colour
I had been going around for years trying to figure out what sex meant to other people. . . .
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 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 provocative debut of sex and sexuality-"depicting the liquid frequencies of need and power with a thoughtful, savage eye" (Raven Leilani, author of Luster)-as a twentysomething New Yorker pursues a sexual freedom that follows no other lines than her own desire.
"Radical, daring, and bracing . . .for me,it made the human creature feel like something new."-Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be? and Pure Colour
I had been going around for years trying to figure out what sex meant to other people. . . .
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 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.
Editorial Reviews
"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 ofLuster
"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
"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 i...
"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 ofLuster
"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
"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 i...
Short Excerpt Teaser
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 f***ed. 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 anonymized usernames and disguised IP addresses, and I put up three photos with no accompanying text.
___
I was on my girlfriend's toilet, the next morning, when Olivia messaged me. My post had accumulated more responses than I could possibly read. Perhaps it shouldn't have come as a surprise that none of the lewdness, the appreciation, not even the occasional brutality of these comments satisfied me. The anonymity of the photos felt cowardly, the distance of the viewers so great as to make their sentiments meaningless. The only part that thrilled me was repeatedly refreshing the page to see the photos reconstitute themselves again and again, not in a private folder on my phone but in a shared white room accessible from all corners of the world.
I was guilty of some trespass against my girlfriend, Romi-that was clear from the fact that I was refreshing the page while hiding in her bathroom. Romi's drugstore-brand cleanser was perched on the sink. Her clean hospital scrubs hung on the back of the door like a poor drawing of a person. But, I reasoned, looking down at my phone, the photos had nothing to do with her. It was only my body that appeared in them, and my body didn't belong to her.
What would Romi do if I showed her the photos? She'd be a little sad, a little confused. What can I do? she would say, convinced that only some inadequacy of hers could leave me wanting the affirmation of strangers.
I assumed the vast majority of the responses were from men. Their comments were full of typos and references to their erections. I smiled, scrolled. When I refreshed again the message at the top was from a user called paintergirl1992. I read the words in the preview-Excuse me-and stifled a laugh.
Excuse me, the message read, I'm sorry to intrude! Your photos are very beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I would love to buy you a drink-are you in NY? Sorry to be so forward. I hope you have a lovely day-Olivia
olivia, I replied, where do you live in ny?
Baby? Romi said loudly from the hall. Are you okay in there?
I'm fine, I said.
Olivia was replying in real time.
Clinton Hill, Olivia wrote. BK! Are you in NY too?
ya
Would you like to meet?
who are you
Olivia sent a link to a social-media profile.
Do you want some coffee? Romi called through the door.
I opened Olivia's profile. I didn't know what to think. I put down my phone and yelled, Yes, over the flush of the toilet.
___
You can see why I didn't trust myself. There was no reason, in the first place, that I should feel so beautiful and isolated. I had a lovely girlfriend-selfless, adoring, great in bed...
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 f***ed. 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 anonymized usernames and disguised IP addresses, and I put up three photos with no accompanying text.
___
I was on my girlfriend's toilet, the next morning, when Olivia messaged me. My post had accumulated more responses than I could possibly read. Perhaps it shouldn't have come as a surprise that none of the lewdness, the appreciation, not even the occasional brutality of these comments satisfied me. The anonymity of the photos felt cowardly, the distance of the viewers so great as to make their sentiments meaningless. The only part that thrilled me was repeatedly refreshing the page to see the photos reconstitute themselves again and again, not in a private folder on my phone but in a shared white room accessible from all corners of the world.
I was guilty of some trespass against my girlfriend, Romi-that was clear from the fact that I was refreshing the page while hiding in her bathroom. Romi's drugstore-brand cleanser was perched on the sink. Her clean hospital scrubs hung on the back of the door like a poor drawing of a person. But, I reasoned, looking down at my phone, the photos had nothing to do with her. It was only my body that appeared in them, and my body didn't belong to her.
What would Romi do if I showed her the photos? She'd be a little sad, a little confused. What can I do? she would say, convinced that only some inadequacy of hers could leave me wanting the affirmation of strangers.
I assumed the vast majority of the responses were from men. Their comments were full of typos and references to their erections. I smiled, scrolled. When I refreshed again the message at the top was from a user called paintergirl1992. I read the words in the preview-Excuse me-and stifled a laugh.
Excuse me, the message read, I'm sorry to intrude! Your photos are very beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I would love to buy you a drink-are you in NY? Sorry to be so forward. I hope you have a lovely day-Olivia
olivia, I replied, where do you live in ny?
Baby? Romi said loudly from the hall. Are you okay in there?
I'm fine, I said.
Olivia was replying in real time.
Clinton Hill, Olivia wrote. BK! Are you in NY too?
ya
Would you like to meet?
who are you
Olivia sent a link to a social-media profile.
Do you want some coffee? Romi called through the door.
I opened Olivia's profile. I didn't know what to think. I put down my phone and yelled, Yes, over the flush of the toilet.
___
You can see why I didn't trust myself. There was no reason, in the first place, that I should feel so beautiful and isolated. I had a lovely girlfriend-selfless, adoring, great in bed...
