Jessica Keener

The seed of this novel began as a short story called Recovery, which won second prize in Redbook's fiction contest. Recovery was listed in the Pushcart Prize under "100 Outstanding Writers" and nominated for a GE Younger Writers award. The Chariton Review published it.

Here's what advance readers have said:

"In a spare, unsentimental voice, Jessica Keener narrates a compelling journey of physical and emotional survival, and finally, of the healing of the self. Her style is elegant and precise, and the story is as moving as it is riveting. I couldn't put it down." --Ivonne Lamazares, author of Sugar Island

"The struggle against life-threatening disease is always dramatic, and the younger the patient the more poignant the struggle. Jessica Brilliant Keener's heroine, in Body Chemistry, faces the real possibility of early death as well as the puzzles of romance, family loyalties, and career ambitions--and takes them on with spirit and not-always-justified hopefulness. Her story is not easy to forget, or to put down." --C. Michael Curtis, senior editor, The Atlantic Monthly.

"Jessica Brilliant Keener's Body Chemistry is that rarity for any novel, and near-miraculous for a first novel. Elegantly conceived and written, it is a medical mystery about a young woman's struggle with a usually fatal disease. But more than that, it is a moving and ferociously intelligent examination of love and sex, mortality and faith--both its limits and power--and when to hold on and when to let go. Enter Keener's world; it will enlarge your heart." --Paul Cody, author of The Stolen Child, So Far Gone and Shooting the Heart.