Synopsis
From the author of the New York Times best seller Swamplandia!—a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize—a magical new collection of stories that showcases Karen Russell’s gifts at their inimitable best.
A dejected teenager discovers that the universe is communicating with him through talismanic objects left behind in a seagull’s nest. A community of girls held captive in a silk factory slowly transmute into human silkworms, spinning delicate threads from their own bellies, and escape by seizing the means of production for their own revolutionary ends. A massage therapist discovers she has the power to heal by manipulating the tattoos on a war veteran’s lower torso. When a group of boys stumble upon a mutilated scarecrow bearing an uncanny resemblance to the missing classmate they used to torment, an ordinary tale of high school bullying becomes a sinister fantasy of guilt and atonement. In a family’s disastrous quest for land in the American West, the monster is the human hunger for acquisition, and the victim is all we hold dear. And in the collection’s marvelous title story—an unforgettable parable of addiction and appetite, mortal terror and mortal love—two vampires in a sun-drenched lemon grove try helplessly to slake their thirst for blood.
Karen Russell is one of today’s most celebrated and vital writers—honored in The New Yorker’s list of the twenty best writers under the age of forty, Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists, and the National Book Foundation’s five best writers under the age of thirty-five. Her wondrous new work displays a young writer of superlative originality and invention coming into the full range and scale of her powers.
This ebook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.
About Karen Russell
See more books from this AuthorA consistently arresting, frequently stunning collection of eight stories.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ... | See more reviews from KirkusThe dangers that dwell in a good story collection are the occasional listless pup, the willing but weak sister.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ... | See more reviews from NY TimesShe has fashioned a quirky, textured voice that is thoroughly her own: by turns lyrical and funny, fantastical and meditative.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ... | See more reviews from NY Times...multiple threads are tied together by pervasive magical realism, with the author’s macabre imagination conjuring malevolent seagulls, karmic scarecrows, and melancholy vampires...
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ... | See more reviews from Publishers WeeklyThere are only eight stories in Russell’s new collection, but as readers of Swamplandia! know, Russell doesn’t work small.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ... | See more reviews from Publishers Weekly...the atmosphere created here is one of tension and even, eventually, well-earned fear.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ... | See more reviews from NPRVampires in the Lemon Grove is flawless and magnificent, and there's absolutely no living author quite like Karen Russell.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ... | See more reviews from NPRIn these eight impressive stories, Russell pulls the rug out on our imagination, creating perplexing, surreal scenarios that bump into the common reality that most of us take for granted.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ... | See more reviews from Star TribuneThis book covers war, gender issues, puberty, marriage, and death with such flair and delight that it’s still surprising to realize this is only Russell’s second story collection.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ... | See more reviews from AV ClubVampires in the Lemon Grove, finds the author pushing even further into the numinous.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ...There is a spark in this writer more substantial than a jar of fireflies, and it's finally starting to burn like a house on fire.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ...Continues her mind-blowing, mythic, macabre, hilarious, and tender inquiry into the profound link between humans and animals, and what separates us.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ...Russell’s fantasies are compelling because they enhance reality.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ...She does have an almost vampiric — which is to say, occasionally destructive — hunger for unusual imagery.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ...If, like me, you’re haunted by Bradbury’s calliopes, King’s snowbound resorts and dark woods, Poe’s cheerful murderers, and Mieville’s inter-dimensional insects, but also like a dash of humor with your terror, Vampires in the Lemon Grove is a must-read.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ...Vampires in the Lemon Grove is a startling success.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ...Her work may be too outlandish for some, too reflexively alternative, but those very qualities translate into a dependable stream of admirable originality.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ...Russell’s collection might leave readers impressed with her ingenuity, but it won’t break their hearts, and they certainly won’t be sleeping with the lights on.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ...It's exactly what one would expect, from a writer who has once again mapped the dark country between our everyday and more primal selves.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ...The heightened realism mode stretches the boundaries of character and situation; it also stretches the boundaries of language and metaphor. It’s not so easy for a reader to judge the success of that stretch.
Read Full Review of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: ... | See more reviews from National Post artsAn aggregated and normalized score based on 345 user ratings from iDreamBooks & iTunes
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