Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover of Bind Me Tighter Still by Lara Ehrlich, which will be published by Red Hen Press on September 09, 2025. You can pre-order your copy here.
The youngest of three siren sisters, Ceto is weary of an existence driven by hunger, no better than a fish. She trades her tail for life on land, marries the first man she meets, and bears a daughter, only to discover that domesticity is just as mundane as siren-hood. In search of something more, she flees with her daughter Naia to the ocean, where she establishes a mermaid burlesque and recreates herself, performing as a siren in a tank built into the limestone cliffs overlooking the sea. She trains more sirens, expanding Sirenland from a roadside attraction to a national sensation she rules without opposition—until Naia, at 15, begins to push back against the world Ceto has created and the role she performs in her mother’s shows. A death at Sirenland threatens Ceto’s authority and leads Naia to question whether this women-ruled kingdom is truly as empowering as her mother would have her believe. Bind Me Tighter Still explores power and hunger, sacrifice and motherhood, and celebrates the fierceness of female strength in a male-dominated world.
Here is the cover, photography by Renee Robyn.
Lara Ehrlich: “I took the book’s title from The Odyssey, in which Odysseus implores his men to “Bind me tighter, still” to the mast as their ship approaches the island of the sirens, so he can’t give in to their song. The book—and the cover—subverts the concept of a man needing to be bound to withstand a woman’s allure.
For me, what’s interesting about siren-hood is not the possession of a tail, but the seam where the tail meets human flesh. That’s where the tension lies, both in real sirens and in the sirens of Bind Me Tighter Still—women in Lycra tails performing before an audience. I’m reminded of a scene from Mad Men, where the powerful, sexy Joan—admired in part for her beautiful breasts—removes her bra to reveal the raw welts left by the straps on her shoulders.
I’m fascinated by how the suffocating tightness of the tail constricts flesh in the name of otherworldly beauty, reminiscent of corsets and push-up bras, and how these garments are worn both to invite the viewer’s gaze and, at the same time, to empower the wearer.
Renee Robyn’s photography, and this photograph in particular, convey a similar tension. The woman on the cover is bound, but not in the sense of being powerless. Her restraint is a choice, a performance of vulnerability that is entirely within her control. This inversion of power dynamics is at the heart of the story.”
