The Pisces by way of Emily St. John Mandel or Karen Russell meets The Snow Child and The Need, AMERICAN MERMAID is by turns both a comic and fabulously insightful tale of two female characters in search of truth, love and self-acceptance as they move between worlds without giving up their voices.
AMERICAN MERMAID
by Julia Langbein
Doubleday, Spring 2023
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)
Penelope Schleeman, a consistently broke Connecticut high school teacher, is as surprised as anyone when her sensitive debut novel, American Mermaid—the story of a wheelchair-bound scientist named Sylvia who discovers that her withered legs are the vestiges of a powerful tail—becomes a bestseller. Penelope soon finds herself lured to LA by promises of easy money to co-write the American Mermaid screenplay for a major studio with a pair of male hacks. As the studio pressures Penelope to change American Mermaid from the story of a fierce, androgynous eco-warrior to a teen sex object in a clam bra, strange things start to happen. Threats appear in the screenplay draft; siren calls lure people into danger. When Penelope’s screenwriting partners try to kill Sylvia off entirely in a bitterly false but cinematic end, matters off the page escalate. Is Penelope losing her mind, or has her mermaid come to life, enacting revenge for Hollywood’s violations?
Julia Langbein (BA, Columbia University, 2003; PhD, University of Chicago, 2013) held a postdoctoral fellowship in Art History at Oxford University from 2014-2018 and is currently a research fellow at Trinity College Dublin, where she is writing a book about how generational conflict and changing ideas of old age have shaped modern art. Her monograph, Laugh Lines: Caricaturing Painting in Nineteenth-Century France, which brings to light a brilliant subculture of comic criticism and argues for its importance in the development of modernist painting, will be published in March 2022 by Bloomsbury Visual Art and has received outstanding advance praise from senior scholars (“impeccably researched,” “engaging,” “essential”). Langbein, a sketch and standup comedian for many years, was the author of the viral comedy blog The Bruni Digest (2003-2007), which reviewed New York Times critic Frank Bruni’s restaurant reviews every week. She has since written about food, art and travel for Gourmet, Eater, Salon, Frieze and other publications.
Whilst roughly one in five women are intentionally childless, the media is fascinated by the topic – whether Jennifer Aniston being rumoured to announce an adoption at the 
Father: Joshua understands the strict rules of time travel: only observe, things cannot be changed. But things are changing quickly for him. When the opportunity of a lifetime comes to attend university in London and leave the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong behind, he finds the courage to take it. From there, he feels it: this is where life begins. Stepping on that plane is the first decision that will have ramifications for generations to come.
Erin is married to handsome and thoughtful Jamie, who sells elaborate security systems: he represents safety to a woman who hasn’t always had that stability in her life. Sophia was an ambitious and successful investigative journalist until a scoop went horribly wrong – leaving her working an entry-level role in local news. Her honeymoon with supportive Mark is a chance to escape and hatch a plan for redemption. When the two women meet at the hotel pool, they spontaneously decide to go on a double date to celebrate their last night. But when a stranger spills a drink over Erin the evening ends abruptly. Hours later he is discovered dead. But it was an accident… right? Back home, and when Erin struggles to answer Sophia’s questions, it becomes clear that there’s another side to this story. Many marriages can survive anything – but when it starts on a lie is it really ’til death do us part?
Through eleven illustrated essays, GIVE ME SPACE BUT DON’T GO FAR encourages readers to understand anxiety as a part of them, a neutral thing as unavoidable and intrinsic as any other part of their body. Anxiety isn’t an obstacle, it’s a roommate. Or in Haley Weaver’s case, her anxiety is represented by a wide-eyed tangle of string, Weaver reveals over the course of the book that it isn’t an enemy to defeat or an obstacle to overcome. Anxiety just is, and it’s never going away, but if we care for it with tender curiosity and attention, it has many gifts to offer. With care, practice, and the friendship of some really great coping mechanisms, you can learn how to live with your anxiety roommate in a mutually respectful, affectionate, even meaningful way.