Bellies: A Novel
$30.00
“Smart, hilarious and deeply moving.” —Elliot Page
“Triumphant and humane.” —Elle
by Nicola Dinan
It begins as your typical boy meets boy. While out with friends at their local university drag night, Tom buys Ming a drink. Confident and witty, a magnetic young playwright, Ming is the perfect antidote to Tom’s awkward energy, and their connection is instant. Tom finds himself deeply and desperately drawn into Ming’s orbit, and on the cusp of graduation, he’s already mapped out their future together. But shortly after they move to London to start their next chapter, Ming announces her intention to transition.
From London to Kuala Lumpur, New York to Cologne, we follow Tom and Ming as they face tectonic shifts in their relationship and friend circle in the wake of Ming’s transition. Through a spiral of unforeseen crises—some personal, some professional, some life-altering—Tom and Ming are forced to confront the vastly different shapes their lives have taken since graduating, and each must answer the essential question: Is it worth losing a part of yourself to become who you are?
Buoyed by a voice as tender, effervescent and wryly funny as the cast of characters it centers, Bellies is an unforgettable story of youth, intimacy, hunger and heartbreak, at once boldly original yet fiercely familiar, which unabashedly holds a mirror up to our most vulnerable selves and desires.
Hardcover | 368 pages | Hanover Square Press | 2023
Alex Reegan is an interfaith minister, speaker and transformative spiritual coach who uses his intuitive wisdom to help guide people toward their own inner knowing. His journey has led him to sobriety, shamanism and then seminary, which helped him reclaim his faith and trust in the divine.
