Catherine Cheng
Catherine Cheng is a Chinese-American author of fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction. She has roots in Xi’an, China and Austin, Texas and currently resides in New York City, where she lives with her two cats: Tofu and Yogurt.
In between her day job in finance and writing, she loves to travel, watch A24 films, and listen to sad girl love songs. WHITEFISH is her debut novel.
Whitefish
A Michelin-starred chef indebted to a wealthy New York family spirals into madness as he grows increasingly obsessed with the merman he is supposed to serve them.
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.
Publication
US: Macmillan (Flatiron)
UK: Hachette (Hodder & Stoughton)
Release date: Fall 2027
