Vampires in the Lemon Grove: And Other Stories
From the author of the novel Swamplandia!--a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize--comes a magical and uniquely daring collection of stories that showcases the author's gifts at their inimitable best.
Within these pages, a community of girls held captive in a Japanese silk factory slowly transmute into human silkworms and plot revolution; a group of boys stumble upon a mutilated scarecrow that bears an uncanny resemblance to a missing classmate that they used to torment; a family's disastrous quest for land in the American West has grave consequences; and in the marvelous title story, two vampires in a sun-drenched lemon grove try to slake their thirst for blood and come to terms with their immortal relationship.
The Boston Globe
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The A.V. Club
A Washington Post Notable Book
An NPR Great Read of 2013
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"Astonishing. . . . Vampires in the Lemon Grove stands out as Russell's best book . . . with prose so alive it practically backflips off the page." --San Francisco Chronicle
"From apparent influences as disparate as George Saunders, Saki, Stephen King, Carson McCullers and Joy Williams, [Russell] has fashioned a quirky, textured voice that is thoroughly her own: lyrical and funny, fantastical and meditative." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"One of the great American writers of our young century." --Maureen Corrigan, NPR "Darkly inventive, demonically driven." --Elle
"No one combines the fantastical with the mundane quite like Karen Russell. . . . The stories in Vampires portray ordinary life with an otherworldly twist in a fascinating and unexpected way. And yet these haunting tales are written with such clarity and recognizable perspectives that they manage the greatest feat of all: in the surreal, we see ourselves. --Jessica Gentile, Paste Magazine, #1 Best Book of the Year "Sea deep, scary smart, richly inventive." --More
"Delightfully weird." --Esquire
"A writer to track and to treasure." --Chicago Tribune "In another ten years Russell will be her generation's George Saunders: the writer whose books are stolen and studied, flashed like badges, and worn to death with rereading. . . . Breathtaking." --The Boston Globe
"One of the most remarkable fantasists writing today." --Elizabeth Hand, The Washington Post
"Witty, and wise, and brimming with vitality. . . . In Russell's stories, malice strolls with morality, horror tangos with humor, and the spirits of Franz Kafka and Flannery O'Connor meet with unexpected comity. . . . With a voice that could spring from an unleashed demon--or an angel on amphetamines--Russell fills this exuberant collection with life's radiance and shadows." --Richmond Times-Dispatch
"Consistently arresting . . . startling . . . profound. . . . Even more impressive than Russell's critically acclaimed novel." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Dazzlingly strange. . . . Vacillating between horror and humor, Russell's writing recalls both George Saunders and vintage Stephen King, sometimes simultaneously."--Time Out Chicago
"A darkly surreal treat." --Wired.com "Eight new cages of horror and heart and winding metamorphoses that would take a normal writer a lifetime to dream into being." --Interview magazine "Bone-chilling ... fantasy and horror underlined with social commentary." --People
"As Russell's imagination soars, so does our joy in reading this collection." --Oprah.com "Wildly inventive. . . . Wondrously strange and moving." --Reader's Digest
"In these stories, familiar human emotions leap into relief against backdrops of almost Tim Burton-like weirdness. . . . [Russell's] stories are as robust as can be." --New York magazine "Karen Russell's stories defy definition. They are at once warm and sinister, a bubble bath with a shark fin lurking underneath the suds." --The Millions
"Clever as hell." --BookRiot
"Wildly imaginative. . . . Gorgeous. . . . Russell has once again mapped the dark country between our everyday and more primal selves." --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"A master of magical realism." --New York Observer "Powerful. . . . 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." --Minneapolis Star Tribune "Wondrously strange and moving." --Reader's Digest
"Nearly flawless . . . . Russell's best work manages to both create a fascinating, surreal world and coax meaning out of it." --The Onion's A.V. Club
