Lean and Slender Forms

Reading Fanie Demeule’s airtight debut can feel a bit like watching a body-horror installation in a dark, windowless room. The narrator is struggling with an eating disorder that steadily consumes her; she’s also practically the only character in the book. But that’s not to say that it’s an entirely unpleasant experience. Lightness is a spare, stylized, and beautiful exploration of a young woman’s life-threatening obsession.

The novel was first published in 2016 under another haunting title, Déterrer les os (Unearth the bones). For a debut, it’s a bold undertaking, one that shocks with form as well as content. Across its scant eighty-plus pages, paragraphs appear in small, bite-sized chunks — a teasing invitation to devour the text quickly. A relentless rhythm of clipped sentences drives an increasingly insular narrative. Demeule’s protagonist remains distant throughout, so much so that we never learn her name. She tells her story with clinical...