Fish Tales

A LITHUB BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025

Acquired by Toni Morrison, championed by Gayl Jones, and almost forgotten for forty years, FISH TALES is a fierce, fearless modern classic for our own fragmented times.

‘Candid, fast and alive’ RAVEN LEILANI
‘Fast, fearless, so full of life it practically vibrates in your hands’ JUSTIN TORRES
‘Wondrous and outrageous, real and incandescent and alive’ BRYAN WASHINGTON
‘Fish Tales will certainly dazzle you, and it might even scandalize you, but it never tells a lie’ ANGELA FLOURNOY
‘A novel of desire, pleasure, drugs and sex . . . We’ll all be better for it having been rediscovered’ LITERARY HUB

I prefer to stay plugged in, Jodi. Plugged in makes me feel alive.

Lewis Jones is a party girl on the edge. Bankrolled by her husband Woody and accompanied by her fellow hedonist Kitty Kat, a hustler who knows all the best spots, Lewis bounces between the demimonde of 70s New York and affluent Black Detroit in a fractured haze of lovers, cocaine parties and champagne baths. But her wild pursuit of freedom is upended when she meets the handsome, erudite, cruel Brook – the only man who won’t allow her to take control.

A kaleidoscopic swirl of sex and exploitation, selfhood and self-destruction, this lost classic is an unnervingly contemporary depiction of the collision between identity, freedom and female desire – perfect for fans of In the Cut, Oreo, Luster and I’m a Fan.