Please Don't Touch the Body : Stories

Author: Doyle, Emily

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 26 November 2026 by Verve Books in the United Kingdom.

By turns tender and irreverent, the eleven genre-bending stories in Please Don't Touch the Body revel in the devastation - and power - of being alive today.

Is there solace to be found in a secret life as a sex columnist? Is a hypochondriac new graduate dying of stomach cancer, or is she just struggling to navigate the responsibilities of adult life? What would happen if Ronald Reagan were reincarnated as the much-loved puppy of a young queer girl? Doyle envisions answers to all of this and more in Please Don't Touch the Body. Preoccupied by the bizarre realities of modern life - from loneliness and community, to religion and repression, to the pleasure and pain of womanhood - this rich collage of stories reveals an original mind and a writer to watch.