Fallow

'What a joy' Kiley Reid 'A spectacular debut: hilarious, sly, sharp, and extraordinarily thoughtful' Lauren Groff Meet Natalie: she hates work, but turns out she's great at labour Natalie has no skills or ambitions. The clock ticks away at the call centre where she works, while she tries to ignore the pain in her jaw. She has no dental insurance. Then, a mysterious flyer leads her to The Company. Natalie turns out to be the perfect candidate for their in-house surrogacy program. The job: deliver seven healthy babies in ten years. Suddenly, her every need is met. And during what Natalie comes to call her 'fallow' periods, she enjoys uncomplicated hedonism. For the first time in her life, she is good at her job; for the first time, she feels free. But as Natalie nears the end of her contract, she meets Jackie, who isn't like the other mothers. And soon Natalie finds herself in another kind of social experiment altogether. 'A very funny book about work and ambition' Rumaan Alam 'A kind of gonzo Handmaid's Tale' Peter Ho Davies

Sarah Anderson is a graduate of the Helen Zell Writers' Program at University of Michigan where she won two Hopwood Awards. Her story 'Take Me to Kirkland' (originally published in Joyland Magazine) is included in the Best American Short Stories 2025 anthology. Fallow is her debut novel.