Jones, Nettie: Fish Tales

THE DAZZLING LOST CLASSIC *A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2025* *A Cosmopolitan Best Book for April 2025* *A New York Times Book Review Most-Anticipated Book of the Spring* *A Time Best Book of the Month* *A The Week Best Book of 2025* Acquired by Toni Morrison, championed by Gayl Jones, and almost forgotten for forty years, FISH TALES is a fierce, fearless modern classic for our own fragmented times. *** 'Candid, fast and alive' RAVEN LEILANI 'Fast, fearless, so full of life it practically vibrates in your hands' JUSTIN TORRES 'Wondrous and outrageous, real and incandescent an d alive' BRYAN WASHINGTON Lewis Jones is a party girl on the edge. Bankrolled by her husband Woody and accompanied by her fellow hedonist Kitty Kat, a hustler who knows all the best spots, Lewis bounces between the demimonde of 70s New York and affluent Black Detroit in a fractured haze of lovers, cocaine parties and champagne baths. But her wild pursuit of freedom is upended when she meets the handsome, erudite, cruel Brook - the only man who won't allow her to take control. A kaleidoscopic swirl of sex and exploitation, selfhood and self-destruction, this lost classic is an unnervingly contemporary depiction of the collision between identity, freedom and female desire - perfect for fans of In the Cut, Oreo, Luster and I'm a Fan . ' Fish Tales will certainly dazzle you , and it might even scandalize you, but it never tells a lie' ANGELA FLOURNOY 'A novel of desire, pleasure, drugs and sex . . . We'll all be better for it having been rediscovered ' LITERARY HUB ' Nettie Jones's voice is astonishing. It leaps off the page like a panther . . . Unlike anything I've ever read' New York Times Book Review ' A cult classic . . . [A] sharp, fast-paced look at the highs and lows of the human heart' The Atlantic 'A burst of authentic energy, a rush of life from start to finish ' Chicago Review of Books ' An unsparing portrait of sexual hedonism . . . a meditation on female sexuality and the cost of pursuing freedom without self-preservation' TLS