A Woman Bonds with Her Late Sister in Stuart Pennebaker'sGhost Fish(Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Stuart Pennebaker and the cover of ‘Ghost Fish’.Photo:Stuart Pennebaker; Little, Brown

Stuart Pennebaker; Little, Brown

Little, Brown

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!“I started writingGhost Fishwhen I was a host at a restaurant during grad school (my third hosting job!) and reading lots of books about restaurants and food — MFK Fisher, Ruth Reichl,Anthony Bourdain— but couldn’t find a book about my particular job, so I decided that would be my project: to write a novel from the host’s perspective,” Pennebaker says. “Unfortunately, my job wasn’t as exciting or interesting as the servers and chefs and restaurant critics — I was mostly just rolling silverware into napkins — and I felt completely stuck.”

“One afternoon, I was walking around my neighborhood when I saw something, a shadow or reflection from a window, and it was like I could almost see a fish floating in the air. When I saw that flash, whatever it was, I knew exactly what would happen in my story: Alison’s sister, who died when the girls were teenagers, would come back to her as a ghost, but not just any kind of ghost: a ghost in the form of a fish.”

Stuart Pennebaker.Stuart Pennebaker

Stuart Pennebaker

The novel also enabled Pennebaker to explore topics like grief and siblinghood.“This is, at least at first, an enormous relief to Alison who is mired in loneliness and grief, and Alison’s sister once again becomes her confidante and closest friend, floating in a pickle jar in Alison’s tote bag, as she navigates friendship and love and roommates and all the other disappointments and ecstasies of one’s early twenties,” Pennebaker says. “I loved writing about sisterhood and spending time with these frustrating, tender characters, and I’m so excited for this book to be out in the world.”

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.Ghost Fishwill be published on Aug. 5, 2025 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.

source: people.com