To Feel Stuff

Book excerpt: A tale of a college student beset with afflictions, by an author whose “books are shot through with light and dark, with strangeness and humor” (Kelly Link). Meet Elodie Harrington, college student and medical anomaly. From chicken pox to tuberculosis, Elodie suffers such a frequent barrage of illnesses that she moves into the Brown University infirmary. When charismatic Chess Hunter enters the infirmary with two smashed knees, he and Elodie begin an intense affair—but Chess is only a visitor to Elodie’s perpetual state of medical siege. As he heals, he moves back to his former life. But Elodie heads in the other direction and begins to experience strange visions. When Professor Mark Kirschling, MD, gets wind of Elodie, he’s convinced he can make his professional mark by cracking her case. But he’s entirely unprepared for what he’s about to encounter. By the author of Like the Red Panda, To Feel Stuff is a novel that is “a satire, ghost story, college romance, and medical drama . . . Seigel’s confidence—her intelligence and nerve—lets her take risks that sweep the reader along” (Bret Easton Ellis, bestselling author of Less than Zero and American Psycho).