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Out on 04 February 2027

Gym

Synopsis

A sweat-slicked, painfully funny novel about obsession, ambition and a woman’s doomed attempt to run from herself. Translated from the German by Lucy Jones.

A woman walks into a gym and lies to get a job.

The gym is a palace of possibility. Here she can transform and start a new life, away from emails and presentations and stressful promotions.

And she can finally get her probation officer off her back.

When people start asking questions, she finds herself pushed to her limits again. A little lie can tumble into a big one, and we can never really escape who we are.

But you can get through anything when there’s no line you wouldn’t cross.

It’s just a question of willpower.

Details

04 February 2027
208 pages
9781037406782
Imprint: Picador

Reviews

A truly funny and witty workCherrypicker, Goethe Institut, Cherrypicker, Goethe Institut
Verena Kessler never tells stories with a raised finger; she does so lightly, amusingly, and comically, and quite wickedly . . . Truly magnificent!Christine Westermann
Maximum entertainment . . . This book goes down like a good techno spinning class: fast-paced, sweaty, and not a second too longThore Rausch
Kessler mercilessly holds a mirror up to everyone who knows ambition, doggedness, and the pressure to be perfect, driving her protagonist into a delusion from which there is no escape – #unhingedwomen at its bestLinn Könnecke