Ghost Fish

Shortlisted for the 2026 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing

“A pitch-perfect portrayal of the chaos and heartbreak of sisterhood.” ―Marie-Helene Bertino, author of Beautyland

A tender coming-of-age novel about a young woman haunted by her sister’s death, who starts to believe that her beloved sibling has returned to her―in the form of a ghost fish, for fans of Sweetbitter and Our Wives Under the Sea. 

Alison is mired in loneliness and grief. Freshly twenty-three and mourning the loss of her younger sister, who has drowned at sea, she’s moved out of her hometown and into a cramped apartment on New York’s Lower East Side. Now she’s living the cliché, barely making rent as a restaurant hostess and avoiding her roommates, while watching the bright, busy passersby from her bubble of grief. She doesn’t need originality; she just needs to be alive.

Then, late one night, she rounds the corner and sees a shape in the air―a ghost. And how strange, it looks like a fish. What is it? Alison knows, without hesitation: it is her beloved sister, finally returned to her side. Safe in a pickle jar filled with water, the ghost fish goes wherever Alison does: in an alcove at the restaurant; in a tote bag on the subway; in her room at night as her roommates chatter outside. She knows she has to keep her safe from the world, the way she didn’t before. She knows that, together, they will never be lonely again. But as Alison’s new life in New York begins to grow, and as she navigates the murky waters of dating, friendship, and desire, she must ask: what if her sister is keeping her away from a life outwardly lived?  

With tenderness and heart, stretching from New York City to Key West, Ghost Fish is a meditation on grief and loneliness, and the strange, kaleidoscopic ways we help ourselves―and those we love―through them.

Stuart Pennebaker (she/her) is a writer and former bookseller raised in South Carolina. She now lives in the East Village where she works and teaches for Gotham Writers Workshop. Ghost Fish is her first novel.