Are we more like a coffee bean, a carrot or an egg? What happens to us when we are boiled in the trials and tribulations of life?

Jessica Miller is fascinated by the somewhat perplexing tendency of humans to end their own lives, but she secretly believes such acts may not be that bad after all. Or at least, she did.

Jessica is coming to terms with her own relationships, and reflecting on what it means to be queer, when a single event throws everything she once believed into doubt. Can she still defend the act?

In Defence of the Act was longlisted for The Women's Prize for Fiction 2024