Showing Swallow by Tonya Plank

GOLD MEDAL WINNER, Best Regional Fiction, Northeast Region, 2010 IPPY Awards
GOLD MEDAL WINNER, Women's Fiction, 2010 Living Now Book Awards,
FINALIST, General Fiction, 2009 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards,
FINALIST, Best Regional Fiction, 2010 National Indie Excellence Awards

Sophie Hegel is a shy New York lawyer from small-town Florence Arizona, known not for the Renaissance but for housing a large prison. She's just graduated from Yale Law School and landed her first job when, one evening she feels a fist-like ball form at the base of her throat. Diagnosed with the psychological condition Globus Sensate, this "fist-ball" wreaks havoc on her life, causing difficulty eating, speaking, and eventually breathing. With a cast of characters that includes a pornographer father, a sister with a knack for getting knocked up by denizens of the town pen, a tough-talking fashion maven, a painter of male nudes, an eccentric Sing Sing-residing client and a bevy of privileged Manhattan attorneys and judges, Swallow is a dark comedy about the distance that can separate fathers and daughters, and about a young woman's struggle to survive in a world of pedigreed professionals for which she has no preparation.