The Girls at 17 Swann Street

Anna Roux was a professional dancer in Paris before she followed the man she loves to Missouri. Alone in a new country, she is left with her worst fears: imperfection, failure and loneliness. She starts cutting foods one at a time, first chocolate, then cheese, then bread.

Her anorexia and depression deepen until she weighs eighty-eight pounds. She is made to accept treatment and is admitted to 17 Swann Street, a peach pink house that holds women whose eating disorders threaten their lives.

Anna meets the other residents there: Emm, who has been through treatment before, quiet Valerie, and Julia, who is always hungry. Together they face six meals a day. Every bite brings anxiety, and every flavor brings guilt.

The novel is literary fiction about eating disorders, told with close attention to one woman's mind and to the daily routine inside the house. Anna's perfectionism, the habit of believing she could be good enough if she were lighter, is what she must break. Recovery depends on her own endurance and on the women who sit at the table with her.