Oddbody

Oddbody Synopsis

AN IRISH TIMES DEBUT AUTHOR TO LOOK OUT FOR 2025

'Joyously diabolic' CAMILLA GRUDOVA
'Dark and sumptuous and unapologetically peculiar' LISA McINERNEY
'Marvellously unnerving' ERIC LaROCCA

Oddbody is a collection of ten bold and unsettling short stories that confront themes of desire, fear and shame, each one asking how far the bounds of the human form can be pushed, stretched - and subverted. A woman finds herself navigating a co-dependent relationship with a ghost. A waitress gives birth to an egg during her breakfast shift. A doctor puts his patient on a cleanse to 'purify' her mind, body and soul.

Through playful but provocative prose, Rose Keating traverses a realm both dreamlike and nightmarish, exposing - to the bone - the absurdities and horrors of the feminine experience. Oddbody prods a finger at societal norms, gleefully turns familiar tropes on their head and announces Keating as an audacious new voice in Irish fiction.