Coming March 16th, 2027!
About the Book
In this radiant and incisive debut novel in the tradition of works by ZZ Packer and Toni Cade Bambara, a Black woman fights to reclaim—and reinvent—her world after a little understood illness and a public health crisis threatens to upend everything she has.
Forty-seven-year-old Harmony Johnston is not suited for New York City life in 2019. From shampoos to synthetics to cell phones—the ubiquitous staples of modern daily life cause her physical pain, for reasons no one, including Harmony, understand. Doctors deny her illness is real, after seven years of enduring this private war, Harmony has her doubts too. Betrayed by her body and mind, as well as those closest to her—her obstinate physician sister, her sneaky best friend, and a spectral aunt who appears and disappears at whim—Harmony clings to the one doctor who offers hope.
In war, there are sacrifices: hair, boyfriend, sleep. Conditioned to place the comfort of others above her own needs, Harmony strives to be accommodating in an increasingly inhospitable world. But when the prestigious non-profit she works for relocates to an office with new wiring, painting, and carpeting (and the same old racial tensions) that exacerbate her pain, she quits her job and begins to set firm boundaries that upend her life, make her universe a little smaller, and magnify her loneliness.
As Harmony grows increasingly ill threatening her relationship with her one sympathetic doctor, she cuts herself off completely from the outside world and plunges into depression and literal darkness. When she eventually resurfaces, the world is irreversibly altered. With everyone now nearly as isolated as she is, Harmony resolves to re-connect with all she has lost. But can things ever really go back to normal?
At turns devastating, funny, and affirming, I Can Feel It All Over is an unforgettable debut novel about bodily autonomy, art, connection, and the pursuit of an authentic life amid the world's confines.
“In this deeply felt novel, as the world increasingly rejects the aptly named Harmony, Harmony’s Black female body increasingly rejects the world. As tensions mount, Harmony becomes an oracle for us all; both a warning and an inspiration; a prism elucidating the connections between social expectations and spiritual turmoil, between power and stress, and between racism and illness, forcing us to ask whether it’s the individual who is ill, or the society.”
— T. Geronimo Johnson, award-winning author of The Occidental Book of the Dead and Welcome to Braggsville
“I CAN FEEL IT ALL OVER is an astounding debut. I have never read a novel that so vividly renders the sensory experiences of living in the world, and of living in a body in conflict with the world. Harmony’s voice, rendered in Ebonya Lia’s masterful prose, is wry, resonant, and utterly original — few narrators are such a delight to spend time with, and I found myself missing Harmony when I left the page. I CAN FEEL IT ALL OVER is full of humor and heartbreak, visceral pain and infectious hope; it is the story of one woman’s radical defiance of everyone else’s expectations, and of carving out a life for oneself against the odds; it addresses, unflinchingly, what it might mean to break free of the strictures of others and truly live on one’s own terms.”
— Naomi Xu Elegant, author of Gingko Season
“Ebonya Lia’s debut novel is a riveting, mesmerizing tale of Harmony, a Black woman trapped in a body that violently reacts to almost every known irritant of our synthetic world, causing her to retreat to the relative safety of her Manhattan apartment. In the vein of Moshfegh’s MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION, Lia takes the metaphor of bodily illness to Kafkaesque extremes. Not since the works of Gayl Jones has the impact of institutional racism on the body of a contemporary Black woman been expressed so viscerally. With prose that cuts like a knife, this is a novel that will get under your skin—just as it should.”
— David Santos Donaldson, author of Greenland, finalist for the 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
“An astonishing and visceral debut, I CAN FEEL IT ALL OVER interrogates the body as a site of both liberation and restriction. Against the social backdrop of collective protest, protagonist Harmony reckons with a corporeality at once isolating and ungovernable. Ebonya Lia’s prose hums with an energetic fury. I did not so much consume this book as let myself be consumed by it.”
— Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, bestselling author of Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare
“Believe Harmony! Believe her! I envy what Lia has created here, a wonderfully complicated portrait of American breakdown and American healing told with verve. Raw, modern, and emotionally attuned, I CAN FEEL IT ALL OVER grabs you by the collar and coos you through another’s pain. Cherished always is that ace writer who comes along and reminds us we are not alone.”
— Sidik Fofana, award-winning author of Stories from the Tenants Downstairs
“I CAN FEEL IT ALL OVER is alive with pain and wonder. Life lived in a hinterland of suffering, but also grace.”
— Darcey Steinke, author of This Is the Door: The Body, Pain, and Faith
Why are pre-orders so important for a debut author?
Pre-orders are an early measure of enthusiasm. Pre-orders impact:
The marketing effort the publisher puts behind the title
Whether a library carries a book
The number of copies a bookstore stocks
How prominently the book is featured in stores, on websites and in emails