Orange World and Other Stories
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4.2 • 32 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
From the Pulitzer Finalist and universally beloved author of the New York Times best sellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, a stunning new collection of short fiction that showcases Karen Russell’s extraordinary, irresistible gifts of language and imagination.
Karen Russell’s comedic genius and mesmerizing talent for creating outlandish predicaments that uncannily mirror our inner in lives is on full display in these eight exuberant, arrestingly vivid, unforgettable stories. In“Bog Girl”, a revelatory story about first love, a young man falls in love with a two thousand year old girl that he’s extracted from a mass of peat in a Northern European bog. In “The Prospectors,” two opportunistic young women fleeing the depression strike out for new territory, and find themselves fighting for their lives. In the brilliant, hilarious title story, a new mother desperate to ensure her infant’s safety strikes a diabolical deal, agreeing to breastfeed the devil in exchange for his protection. The landscape in which these stories unfold is a feral, slippery, purgatorial space, bracketed by the void—yet within it Russell captures the exquisite beauty and tenderness of ordinary life. Orange World is a miracle of storytelling from a true modern master.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The inimitable Russell (Vampires in the Lemon Grove) returns with a story collection that delights in the uncanny, parlaying the deeply fantastical to reflect the basest and most human of our desires. In "The Bad Graft," an eloping young couple, Angie and Andy, go hiking at Joshua Tree National Park. They've arrived during peak pulse event season, when yucca moths swarm and "the Joshua tree sheds a fantastic sum of itself." This refers to both pollination and a Joshua tree's so-called Leap, during which Angie becomes the human vessel for the tree's spirit. In "The Tornado Auction," Robert Wurman is a former tornado farmer, retired now after decades of raising tornadoes for "weather-assisted demolition." His spontaneous decision to purchase a young tornado begins to spiral out of control as the tornado grows larger and more destructive, and he is forced to face the ramifications of his choices on his family. And in the title story, a mother desperate to save her child makes a deal with the devil, allowing the devil to breast feed from her in exchange for protection and peace of mind. Each story is impeccably constructed and stunningly imagined, though not all of them land emotionally. Regardless, this is a wonderfully off-kilter collection.
Customer Reviews
MEH
Such glowing reviews! And then I read the first story, which to me read like a high schooler’s atempt at a ghost story. Did not grab me or make me care. Decided to put it down for a while and go back to each story over time. The reviews were very misleading. OK to pass on this one.