{"title":"Megan Cummins","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"if-the-body-allows-it-book-megan-cummins-9781496222831","title":"If the Body Allows It","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLonglisted for the PEN\/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIf the Body Allows It\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e is divided into six parts and framed by the story of Marie, a woman in her thirties living in Newark, New Jersey. Suffering from a chronic autoimmune illness, she also struggles with guilt over the overdose and death of her father, whom she feels she betrayed at the end of his life. The stories within the frame-about failed marriages, places of isolation and protection, teenage mistakes, and forging a life in the aftermath-are the stories the narrator writes after she meets and falls in love with a man whose grief mirrors her own. \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIf the Body Allows It\u003c\/i\u003e explores illness and its aftermath, guilt and addiction, and the relationships the characters form after they’ve lost everyone else, including themselves.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eIntrospective, devastating, and funny, \u003ci\u003eIf the Body Allows It\u003c\/i\u003e grapples with the idea that life is always on the brink of never being the same again. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50480203956497,"sku":"CIN1496222830G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51030329753873,"sku":"NIN9781496222831","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":54559926911249,"sku":"GOR015094346","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1496222830.jpg?v=1786963508"},{"product_id":"atomic-hearts-book-megan-cummins-9780593875353","title":"Atomic Hearts","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"A nuclear blast to the emotional core . . . Part teenage summer fling, part family tragedy, Megan Cummins's debut is the most exquisitely written, bighearted journey into friendship, addiction, and the frustrations that come with parenting our parents.\"-Nick Fuller Googins, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Great Transition\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eI'd been raised on secrets, I knew they weren't a good idea.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Sixteen and living in a small Michigan town, Gertie is harboring a secret heavy enough to fracture her closest friendship. She and Cindy have been bonded since birth by the fact their fathers are addicts, and their unsteady home lives are a little easier when they're together, sprawled on a trampoline with pilfered vodka and dreams of moving to New York.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eEverything was changing so fast. I didn't know what was real.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e After an accident involving a bonfire and an aerosol canister sends Gertie to the hospital, she finds herself with nowhere to go but to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to live with her newly sober father. She sees it as a chance to escape the hometown drama she's caused, but drama finds her all the same: parties without curfews, boys without boundaries, a compromising photo, tragedy back home . . . and her father, once again teetering on the edge of oblivion. Terrified of the consequences of being honest with Cindy, her sole refuge is the fantasy novel she's writing, a portal to another world and the story of a young girl roaming a strange land, trusting her wits to survive.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eI had to become a different, stronger person before I'd even figured out who I was in the first place.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Years later, when ghosts of the past surface, Gertie decides to write again about that explosive summer from the stabler shores of adulthood. 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I didn't know what was real.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e After an accident involving a bonfire and an aerosol canister sends Gertie to the hospital, she finds herself with nowhere to go but to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to live with her newly sober father. She sees it as a chance to escape the hometown drama she's caused, but drama finds her all the same: parties without curfews, boys without boundaries, a compromising photo, tragedy back home . . . and her father, once again teetering on the edge of oblivion. 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