Mending Bodies

Synopsis

In a failing city, a government program promises renewal through an unsettling solution: couples are encouraged to become permanently "conjoined" through surgery. Marketed as a path to economic recovery, environmental restoration, and personal fulfillment, the program gradually reshapes society's understanding of love, sacrifice, and belonging.

A graduate student researching the history of the initiative begins to suffer from severe insomnia as the pressures around her intensify. Surrounded by friends and institutions insisting that conjoining is both a personal duty and a public good, she finds herself questioning whether autonomy is worth preserving. Blending body horror with political allegory, Mending Bodies is a chilling and deeply original novel about intimacy, conformity, and the forces that shape our desires.

About the Author

Talia Lakshmi Kolluri is an American writer whose fiction explores power, identity, ecology, and the tensions between individual freedom and collective responsibility. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, earning praise for its imaginative scope and psychological depth.

Publisher
Two Lines Press

Publication Date
October 14, 2025

Format
Paperback

Pages
248

Subjects
Literary Fiction · Speculative Fiction · Body Horror · Political Fiction

ISBN
9781949641769