Publicist: Mary Bisbee Beek mbisbee.beek@gmail.com
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Coming soon…
Off the Yoga Mat
By Cheryl J. Fish
Livingston Press, The University of West Alabama, 2022
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.
Advance Praise for Off the Yoga Mat, A novel by Cheryl J. Fish
“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
“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, they 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
Here is Cheryl reading an excerpt from the novel.
Excerpt from Off the Yoga Mat in Boog City #146, December, 2021