The Body Farm by Abby Geni is a collection of stories rooted deeply in the physical. Although the collection derives its title from the final short story of the book, it is an aptly chosen one; each story focuses on the disastrous effects of life on the human body, running from the miraculous to the truly horrifying.
Of the book’s 11 short stories, the first 10 are in conversation with each other. “The Rapture of the Deep” and “A Spell for Disappearing,” for example, both feature women who know themselves and their desires better than the rest of the world does, acting on their needs to ensure the best versions of life. In contrast, two of the final stories of the collection, “Starlike” and “Petrichor,” are terrifying tales of people trapped — within themselves, within relationships, and within a broader society whose expectations restrict them.
“The Body Farm” is the 11th and standalone story, serving as the most physically graphic of the collection. It breaks the mold of the other stories, ending not with a sense of finality but rather with a haunting lack of satisfaction.
Although the physical form acts as the conduit for her narratives, Geni’s stories thematically align more with entrapment and liberation. Each circle primal questions of what it means to be free, how to ensure freedom and what to do when the freedom of others intersects with your own desires.
In “Across, Beyond, Through,” the freedom at risk is the freedom of expression and honesty. This is sharply contrasted with “The First Rule of Natalie,” in which freedom means a family’s ability to exist safely in their own home. In these tales, liberty comes at a cost — sometimes financial, sometimes physical and sometimes by sacrificing someone else.
“The First Rule of Natalie” presents an achingly sweet image of a young girl trying to create a narrative for her disabled sister. Geni captures the exact way children refine their own theories with logic that exists outside of adulthood. The narrator theorizes that her sister is something mythical, refining her “hypothesis” out of a genuine desire to help her sister feel comfortable in the world they both inhabit. While this story is filled with melancholic love that I caught myself thinking about the rest of the day, “Petrichor” had me shuddering and needing a long walk. Set against the backdrop of the COVID pandemic, Hannah finds herself gradually losing all of her senses, slowly becoming trapped in a body that no longer tells her brain what it is experiencing. Geni is meticulous with her details here, drawing out the loss of sensation with haunting descriptions.
The Body Farm contains real moments of brilliance, which makes its less refined pieces seem even more out of place. One of my favorite concepts unfolds in “Mother, Sister, Wife, Daughter,” in which seven sisters and their mother try to reconcile with abandonment by their patriarch. The framework is clever, as the story uses “we” and “us” despite not having a concrete first-person narrator; none of the children, nor the mother, serve as the story’s vehicle, yet the reader is pulled into a more intimate perspective. However, the story’s conclusion is tremulous at best, needing another pass to earn its smiling conclusion.
Geni’s writing is compelling. There is a clean symmetry to The Body Farm as a collection that highlights her craft and intentionality. Freedom for and from the bodies we inhabit is meticulously examined, artfully described and hauntingly dissected.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s August 2025 issue.
