Catherine Cheng

Whitefish

Head Chef Jun Li keeps a mermaid in a run-down Morningside Heights bathroom, where he carves him up, piece by piece, at the behest of the wealthy Winslow family who funded his rise from his parents’ Flushing restaurant to Michelin-starred chef.

As he butchers to satisfy the family’s increasingly voracious appetite, the neurotoxic flesh drives the family toward paranoia, sexual obsession, and madness, while an unsettling intimacy blooms between chef and ingredient. Jun must decide how much of himself—and his captive—he’s willing to sacrifice to prove he belongs among Manhattan’s gilded elite, all with a second Michelin star hanging in the balance.