Novelist Lillian Fishman Shapes a Kinky Love Triangle

Suit and Shirt by Gucci. Rings (left to right) by Tiffany and Co. and Paloma Picasso for Tiffany & Co.

From the opening scene of Lillian Fishman’s debut novel Acts of Service, a desire to push boundaries is apparent in the aptly named protagonist, Eve. “My body was crying out that I was not fulfilling my purpose,” Eve muses. Thus begins a multi-borough, multi-partner, multi-orgasmic journey of twenty something pleasure-seeking in New York.

Though the writer herself didn’t embark upon the exact relationship-entangled saga into which her heroine veers, Fishman’s own sexual explorations occasioned many of the questions and anxieties that tug at Eve. Growing up in a small, uncharacteristically red Massachusetts town, Fishman came out in high school, which was rare among her peers. Moving to New York City to attend Barnard College, she found an “objectively more open-minded environment,” but one that still lacked a radical understanding of the multi-hyphenate definitions of sexual orientation. “I felt that being able to define your identity as a queer person was really important,” Fishman says of her college self. Now, at 27, after receiving her MFA at NYU, working part-time as a fiction reader for The New Yorker and at Brooklyn’s Greenlight bookstore, the author doesn’t feel the same weight of identity bearing down quite so heavily. Nevertheless, she did realize the potential in constructing a story around those essential desires.

Enter Eve, who finds herself stuck in a stable but dull long-term relationship with her girlfriend. Once committed and content, Eve begins to chase physical and emotional cravings, while keeping up the appearance of fidelity. Soon enough, she’s entangled in a complicated love triangle with a straight couple who are consumed with testing their own erotic limits. Ultimately, Fishman’s coming-of-age story isn’t only about sex—or at least, not merely a kind of titillating literary porn. Using sex as a road map, Eve is searching to understand her own inner workings as a young woman. While writing Acts of Service, Fishman kept returning to a simple idea: We tend to love what disturbs us, if we are willing to follow our desires and take the risk. —MARIA VOGEL

Jacket, Shirt, and Pants by Celine by Hedi Slimane.

An excerpt from Acts of Service

I had hundreds of nudes stored in my phone, but I’d never sent them to anyone. The shots themselves were fairly standard: my faceless body floating in bedrooms and bathrooms, in mirrors. Whenever I took one I fell in love with it for a moment. Standing there, naked and hunched over my little screen, I felt overwhelmed with the urge to show someone this new iteration of my body. But each photo seemed more private and impossible than the last.

Suit by Alexander McQueen. Shoes by Miu Miu. Ring by Tiffany & Co.

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Hair: Takuya Yamaguchi using Oribe at The Wall Group

Makeup: Akaya Nihe using Mac Cosmetics

Production: Born Artists

Fashion Assistant: Lulu Lee

Excerpted from Acts of Service: Copyright © 2022 by Lillian Fishman. Published in the United States by Hogarth, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.