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OFF THE YOGA MAT follows three characters approaching 40 on a rollicking journey of love, transformation, and jealousy as Y2K approaches.
Nate, a graduate student researching jealousy in Darwin and Shakespeare, denies he ever experiences that emotion. In shielding himself from disappointment, he almost misses out on a scintillating romance.
After she breaks up with Nate, Nora, fueled by the desire to have a baby, takes a temporary job at Nokia in Finland. She sweats in the sauna, tries on men like miniskirts, and embraces the Finnish concept of sisu: perseverance despite setbacks.
Nate's yoga teacher, Lulu, yearns to get to the bottom of her nightmares of childhood abuse. An experiment concocted by Nate's friends to test his ability to withstand jealousy pushes him into a steamy tryst with Lulu. While she aids her ailing mother in New Orleans, Lulu meets a woman who helps her confront her violent past. After they become lovers, Nate (jealous this time) reconnects with Nora at a wedding. Their boozy nostalgic reunion complicates everything.
About the author
Cheryl J. Fish grew up in Flushing, NY. She is a poet, fiction writer, and environmental justice scholar. Her recent books of poetry include CRATER & TOWER, on trauma and ecology after the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption and the terrorist attack of 9/11/01, and THE SAUNA IS FULL OF MAIDS, poems and photographs celebrating Finnish sauna culture, the natural world, and friendships. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Poetics-for-the-More-than-Human- World, New American Writing, Newtown Literary, Terrain.org, Reed, and Hanging Loose. Her short fiction has been published in Iron Horse Literary Review, CheapPop, Spank the Carp, and Liar's League. OFF THE YOGA MAT, her debut novel about three characters turning 40 as the year 2000 (Y2K) approaches, will be published in 2022 by Livingston Press. Fish's essays on films and photography by Sami artists challenging mining and extraction have appeared in the books Arctic Cinemas; Nordic Narratives of Nature and the Environment; and Critical Norths: Space, Nature, Theory. She is the author of two books and essays on African-American travel writing, June Jordan's environmental justice poetics, and women's travel literature. Fish has been a Fulbright professor in Finland and visiting professor at Mt. Holyoke College; she teaches at BMCC/City University of New York, and is a docent lecturer in the Dept. of Cultures at University of Helsinki.
