Cheryl J. Fish’s ingenious, smart, and witty debut novel follows three compelling characters as their lives and desires intertwine. On or off the yoga mat, these characters attempt to expand their emotional as well as bodily flexibility while battling jealousy, rejection, and the stranglehold of the past. Fish’s deep knowledge of yoga and of the psychological, geographical, and sensory terrain renders this ambitious novel absorbing and impressive. Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. Just like her characters, we can find ourselves carried away.

–Lee Upton, author of Visitations: Stories

Cheryl J. Fish's debut novel OFF THE YOGA MAT is smart, soulful, and surprising.  I found myself deeply touched by the struggles of her flawed characters as they negotiate work, love, and dumpster diving. 
–Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of Once Upon a River, American Salvage and Mothers Tell Your Daughters

Off the Yoga Mat is an intricate saga of three lost souls journeying into the past, the present, and the future to cure ailments of the mind, the body, and the heart. Every page is a gift of wisdom and surprise, rendered in lush, poetic prose. It's a book of ideas with tremendous emotional power.

—Jonathan Vatner, author of The Bridesmaids Union

Available to order from Livingston Press. Available wherever fine books are sold.

Off the Yoga Mat

With age 40 and the year 2000 (Y2K) looming, Nate, Nora, and Lulu find their lives unraveling, their aspirations dashed. Nate, dead broke, in his eighth year of graduate delves hopelessly into yoga. Nate's ex-girlfriend Nora finagles a position in Finland where she tries on men like miniskirts and embraces sisu, the Finnish concept of perseverance, in pursuit of motherhood. And yogi Lulu, Nate’s talented teacher, yearns to get to the bottom of her nightmares of childhood abuse as she travels to her hometown, New Orleans, to care for her ailing mother.

Off the Yoga Mat explores jealousy, bends of the body, and the courage to confront traumatic memory. Told in alternating chapters by Nate, Lulu, and Nora, the novel takes the reader on three risky coming-of-middle age journeys through sensuality, emotional evolution, and breathing, deep.

Debut novel, Off the Yoga Mat published by Livingston Press. PUB DATE 10/20/22.

Here is Cheryl reading an excerpt from the novel.

Excerpt in KGB Bar Lit

Excerpt from OFF THE YOGA MAT in Boog City #146, January, 2022

“Fish has created some interesting dynamics of adulthood amid Y2K tension, and she ably explores the shifting nature of relationships without casting anyone as the villain. Ultimately, each finds their own way without sabotaging anyone else’s happiness. —Kirkus Review