Vampires in the Lemon Grove - (Vintage Contemporaries) by Karen Russell (Paperback)

About the Book

Six short stories with subjects ranging from a dejected teenager who discovers that the universe is communicating with him through talismanic objects left behind in a seagull's nest to two vampires in a sun-drenched lemon grove who try helplessly to slake their thirst for blood.

Book Synopsis

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.

Named a Best Book of the Year by:
The Boston Globe
O, The Oprah Magazine
Huffington Post
The A.V. Club

A Washington Post Notable Book
An NPR Great Read of 2013

Review Quotes

"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 most innovative, inspired short-story collections in the past decade. . . . There's absolutely no living author quite like Karen Russell." --Michael Schaub, NPR

"Karen Russell's imagination is once again on full, Technicolor, mind-bending display. . . . Russell's stories will be seizing our imaginations--and nibbling at the edges of our nightmares--for years to come." --The Miami Herald

"Hilarious, exquisite, first-rate." --Joy Williams, The New York Times Book Review

"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

About the Author

Karen Russell, a native of Miami, won the 2012 National Magazine Award for fiction, and her first novel, Swamplandia! (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is a graduate of the Columbia MFA program, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2012 Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. She lives in Philadelphia.