The Girls at 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib
“All the patients are there. There are seven of us, of whom five, including me, are anorexic. Not difficult to spot; they look pubescent and gaunt. Sunken eyes in sunken faces, scarecrow-thin arms and legs. Pale skin and hair, no lips. One is wearing a bright turquoise sweater. The color stands out.
Their ages are difficult to determine. As is mine, I suppose. They must be older than eighteen, at least; this is the women’s center. But women rings false in my head. These patients are not women. They are missing breasts, curves, probably periods. Most are wearing children’s clothes.
They look androgynous, their skin hanging in loose pockets around fragile frames. Not women; women have bodies, sex, lives, dinner, families. The patients in this room are girls with eyes that are too big.”
-Anna, page 45
Quick Synopsis: Anna has moved to Missouri from Paris with her husband, Matthias. Before they moved to Missouri, Anna was a dancer who loved sharing experiences with Matthias and took great pleasure in making their marriage truly blissful. After moving away from her family in Paris and unable to find a job as a dancer, Anna finds herself largely in a moment of extreme loneliness, and in that space, alone, she is unable to combat her fears of imperfection and failure. A constant fear is that Matthias will fall out of love with her, and alone during the day in Missouri, Anna dwells on that. Slowly, Anna begins to restrict her diet as it is the one thing she can control. She begins to subsist on nothing more than apples, lettuce, cabbage, and popcorn, and eventually her eating disorder is simply too much to ignore. Matthais and Anna take the step of checking Anna into a treatment facility for women with eating disorders, and over the course of six weeks, Anna gains friendships, confidence, and a new appreciation for bagels and cream cheese. The Girls at 17 Swann Street lets the reader go on this journey to recovery with Anna and the other girls at Swann Street. We suffer with them through their six meals a day, and we root for them to make small wins that will help them fully recover.
Why I Like It: I have always sought to understand eating disorders, and books such as this one and Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson do a great job explaining what it is like in the mind of someone consumed by an eating disorder. So often, these patients are misunderstood and outside forces know nothing more than to say, “Eat more.” In reality, words such as, “You need to eat” ring false to someone with an eating disorder, but people on the outside of the eating disorder don’t know what else to say because they simply don’t understand. The Girls at 17 Swann Street is helpful to me because it tries to give a first-person account of anorexia and helps the reader understand the mental anguish of a person with an eating disorder. The author, Yara Zbheib, is so good at this because as she acknowledges, she herself developed anorexia and “could not understand this horrible disease that was destroying my life, nor could those around me who love me. I felt alone, scared, and very much ashamed.” (Reading Group Gold: Author Q&A).
Why You Might Like It: The Girls at 17 Swann Street is an excellent read for anyone wanting to acknowledge that Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and other eating disorders are true, diagnosable disorders that require treatment, patience, and grace. It also has a recursive element of love and determination, which will sustain you when Anna is having a particularly tough time in treatment or during the darker times of the book. Eating disorders are not often talked about, especially in fictional settings. It’s an odd topic, and eating disorders are still shrouded in a cloak of misunderstanding. Many people roll their eyes when they see someone not eating enough, or they shame women for being too skinny or not eating enough. It’s not a sexy issue, by any means, and I’m sure the topic itself doesn’t lend to making it on the best-sellers lists. However, the sad truth is that over 13% of women over the age of 50 engage in eating disorder behaviors, and eating disorders have the highest rate of mortality of any mental illness (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders). There are other important statistics, and Zbheib artfully weaves those in the book. If you are looking for an engaging read that also teaches you to be more compassionate toward a certain subset of people, try this one. It’s a great beach or rainy day read, and I promise, you’ll never look at a bagel and cream cheese the same way again.
Publishing Information: The copy of The Girls at 17 Swann Street that I read and is pictured on this website was written by Yara Zbheib and published by St. Martins Press in New York in 2019. It was also copyrighted in 2019.
