J.G. Ballard’s  Crash  meets Albert Camus’s  The Plague  in a transgressive horror novel for the TikTok generation. Will is a fraud. Olivia is a wreck. They meet at a grief share group and quickly bond over their brokenness. They also have a peculiar hobby; they seek out sickness. Will hunts for the latest strain of flu. Olivia doesn’t feel comfortable in her body if she isn’t suffering from a fever. They become virus chasers, finding confidence in their ability to conquer every affliction they come across. They soon discover an online community of chasers called The Source and realize that their hobby isn’t all that odd when seen from the right distance. And then the mysterious Zaff literally walks into their life, claiming that he has the goods, knows where the latest outbreak will drop. Intrigued, Will and Olivia decide to take their hobby to the point of obsession, believing that if they can conquer the newest strain, nobody can hurt them. "Seidlinger's squirm-inducing and thought-provoking novel spins the fear of the COVID era into something terrifying in a whole new way." —Library Journal "Viscerally and metaphysically repulsive—and a dangerously accurate snapshot of a society, as only Michael Seidlinger could do."  —Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of  The Indian Lake Trilogy "Human connection as drug, fame as disease: Seidlinger carves from our Age of Illness a brilliantly nihilistic nightmare."  —Daniel Kraus, author of  Whalefall “This might just be Michael J. Seidlinger’s magnum opus. The Body Harvest is an unapologetically radical novel, both in scope and execution and its pages are dank and dripping with nihilism, body horror, conspiracy theories and the self-destructive nature of the human condition. Seidlinger has written a deeply harrowing and disturbing glimpse at a subculture everyone is dying to join.”  —Ross Jeffery, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of I Died Too, But They Haven’t Buried Me Yet and The Devil’s Pocketbook “Raw and alarmingly prophetic, Michael J. Seidlinger’s The Body Harvest is a crucible of torment that lures the reader into a consecrated baptism of human suffering and then traps you there until you turn the final page and find yourself forever marked, eternally polluted.” —Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke " The Body Harvest is an absolute fever dream. It features characters who have the need to feel alive through feeling their mortality, identifying it, and pushing it to its very limits; of being on the verge of death but not dying, of using illness as a way to overcome the difficulties of life. If given the opportunity, if there are no consequences, how many would succumb to their darkest desires? If we are immortal, would morality still stand?" —Ai Jiang, author of Linghun “Michael J. Seidlinger is a twisted wizard of transgressive craft, and The Body Harvest is his phlegmcore Fight Club. A tale of viral codependency that starts off like Terrence Malick’s Badlands with a biohazard spin before taking a Cronenbergian turn down David Lynch Lane. This book will leave you bedridden and babbling for your next Seidlinger fix.” —Brian McAuley, author of Candy Cain Kills and Curse of the Reaper “Part body horror, part exploration of the destruction that grief can cause on our sense of wellness, The Body Harvest is disturbing, disgusting, and at times deliciously delusional.”   —Independent Book Review  MICHAEL J. SEIDLINGER is the Filipino-American author of The Body Harvest, Anybody Home?, Tekken 5 (Boss Fight Books), and other books. He has written for, among others, Wired, Buzzfeed, Polygon, The Believer, and Publishers Weekly. He teaches at Portland State University and has led workshops at Catapult, Kettle Pond Writer's Conference, and Sarah Lawrence. He is represented by Lane Heymont at The Tobias Literary Agency. You can find him at michaeljseidlinger.com. You never know until it’s too late what might be incubating in your body, metastasizing to become the next name you can’t forget. He coughs in her face. She breathes in, mouth wide, anticipating a few droplets to make it up the bridge of her nose, into the inner sanctum of her body, a wanton new host to incubate. She keeps her eyes closed, but it’s clear that she can barely tolerate the anticipation. Their faces inches from each other, he watches as his own saliva lands on her face, a noticeable streak of phlegm on her right cheek. It’s how they don’t hold each other close, how he clears his throat and coughs a second time that makes it quite clear that what’s happening here is an entirely different sort of transaction. That’s him, Will, who has started to come down with something. She opens her eyes after the second cough, can sense the fluids on her face, yet waits a few moments before wiping them on her sleeve. That’s her, Olivia, who would be, by any sense of the term, healthy, which is enough to make her come out o