Dylan Landis

“Wonderful! Leah and Helen are authentic, vulnerable characters, whose intimate truths are exposed at perfect, unexpected moments.”—Elizabeth Strout At the center of this startling fiction debut is Leah Levinson, a teen at sea in the anonymous ordeals of a middle-class upbringing on the Upper West Side in the 1970s. In ten installments, written from varying perspectives, we witness her uneasy relationships with faster, looser peers—girls she is drawn to but also alienated by. No one, though, alienates Leah more than her mother, Helen. Estranged yet intertwined, they struggle within the confines of their personalities, unaware of how similar their paths are. Just when they seem at a lonely impasse, each makes an impulsive change—Leah taking a risky trip abroad, Helen renting a secret room in a welfare hotel. Jolted from their old patterns, the two of them independently glimpse the possibility of a more hopeful life. Dylan Landis is a gifted portraitist of unforgettable female characters. Normal People Don’t Live Like This is a striking debut.

Normal People Dont Live Like This

Living in a decaying 1970s brownstone with her cultish jazz musician father, 14-year-old Rainey endures unwanted advances from her father's friend while pursuing her own creative ambitions and struggling to build a substitute family. By the author of Normal People Don't Live Like This. $65,000 ad/promo.

Rainey Royal

A ten-part tale set on the Upper West Side of the 1970s follows the coming-of-age experiences of Leah, who is alienated by her estranged mother and her faster-living peers, a situation that is shaped by impulsive decisions that jolt mother and daughter out of parallel patterns. Original. A first novel.

Normal People Don't Live Like this

New York, Greenwich Village, années 1970. Rainey Royal, quatorze ans, habite une maison autrefois élégante mais aujourd'hui délabrée. Elle vit avec son père, musicien de jazz culte, qui mène une existence bohème dans cette grande demeure ouverte à tous. Sa mère ayant déserté le foyer pour aller vivre dans un ashram, Rainey est livrée à elle-même, proie facile pour les protégés de son père qui vont et viennent dans la maison. À l'extérieur, l'adolescente rebelle se révèle forte et cruelle, violente même, jouant du pouvoir de séduction qu'elle exerce sur les autres pour trouver son chemin. Avec une élégance rare, Dylan Landis dessine le portrait d'une jeune fille à la fois conquérante et vulnérable. Personnage envoûtant, Rainey Royal déploie sa beauté au fil de ce bouleversant roman d'apprentissage.

D'extase et d'amour féroce

ELEGANT AND EASY LIVING ROOMS is the guide to creating design magazine magic in any home--a living room that's a personal haven for family and a magnetic gathering spot for friends. Whether readers want a design overhaul or just a few beautiful upgrades, this compendium is packed with designer-tested (and budget-conscious) tips, including: the best specific paint colors for living rooms; restful, romantic ways to brighten a room starved for sun; and simple ways to make a ceiling look higher (or lower).

100 Trade Secrets for Designing with Style

Elegant and Easy Living Rooms

Set in the bohemian Greenwich Village of the 1970s, Dylan Landis, winner of a 2014 O. Henry Prize (for "Trust," a section of this novel) weaves a powerful story of girlhood, friendship, and sexuality. Fourteen-year-old Rainey Royal lives with her father, a jazz musician with a cultish personality, in a once-elegant, now-decaying brownstone. Her mother has abandoned the family, and Rainey fends off advances from her father’s best friend while trying desperately to nurture her own creative drives and build a substitute family. She’s a rebel, even a criminal, but she’s also deeply vulnerable, fighting to figure out how to put back in place the boundaries her life has knocked down, and more than that, struggling to learn how to be an artist and a person in a broken world. Rainey Royal is told in 14 narratives of scarred and aching beauty that build into a fiercely powerful novel: the harrowing and ultimately affirming story of a young artist.

Dylan Landis

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