Karen Russell

A collection of stories features a pair of centuries-old vampires whose relationship is tested by a sudden fear of flying, a dejected teen who communicates with the universe, and a massage therapist who heals a tattooed veteran by manipulating the imageson his body.

Stories

Vampires in the Lemon Grove

An awkward teen with a terrible haircut has a reversal of fortune when he finds artefacts from the future lining a seagulls' nest. In a godforsaken barn, Presidents Eisenhower, John Adams and Rutherford B. Hayes are bemused to find themselves reincarnated as horses. Clyde and Magreb - he a traditional capes-and-coffins vampire, she the more progressive variety - settle in an Italian lemon grove in the hope that its ripe fruit will keep their thirst for blood at bay. 'Russell can take Antarctic tailgaters, an army of seagulls or simply a window and twist a tale that explodes on the page and lingers in the mind' The Times

He'd railed against the media coverage on the left and right alike: prurience, pawned off as compassion! The bloodlust of civilians. War-as-freak-show, war-as-snuff-film. "All the smoky footage on the seven a.m. news to titillate you viewers who are just waking up. Give you a jolt, right? Better than your Folger's."

The only heaven that Rutherford has known in the Barn comes in single moments: a warm palm on his nose, fresh hay, a tiny feast of green thistle made nearly invisible by the sun. At dawn, Heaven is a feeling that comes when the wind sweeps the fields. Heaven is this wind, Rutherford knows for an instant, bending a million yellow heads of wheat.

Her hand glides along the curve of her spine, bumps along her tailbone. These are the "rudimentary vertebrae"; the fishy ancient coccygeal bones. The same spine that has been inside her since babyhood is hers today, the exact same bones from the womb, a thought that always fills her with a kind of thrilling claustrophobia. So much surface wrapped around that old stem. She watches her hands smear the water droplets on her stomach. It's strange to own anything, Beverly thinks, even your flesh, that nobody outside yourself ever touches or sees.

Often I wonder to what extent a mortal's love grows from the bedrock of his or her foreknowledge of death, love coiling like a green stem out of that blankness in a way I'll never quite understand. And lately I've been having a terrible thought: 

Our love affair will end before the world does

Because I love her, my hunger pangs have gradually mellowed into a comfortable despair. Sometimes I think of us as two holes cleaved together, two twin hungers. Our bellies growl at each other like companionable dogs. I love the sound, assuring me we're equals in our thirst.

An awkward teen with a terrible haircut has a reversal of fortune when he finds artefacts from the future lining a seagullsâe(tm) nest. In a godforsaken barn, Presidents Eisenhower, John Adams and Rutherford B. Hayes are bemused to find themselves reincarnated as horses. Clyde and Magreb âe" he a traditional capes-and-coffins vampire, she the more progressive variety âe" settle in an Italian lemon grove in the hope that its ripe fruit will keep their thirst for blood at bay. âe~Russell can take Antarctic tailgaters, an army of seagulls or simply a window and twist a tale that explodes on the page and lingers in the mindâe(tm) The Times

I didn't like how the stories ended ambiguously

isabelle

favourites:

vampires in the lemon grove

reeling for the empire

I didn't like how the stories ended ambiguously

Nora 

An amazing and very visual style of written, with such a unique imagination. Thought not as cohesive (the endings could use a bit of a tidying) as a previous works, there are certainly a few gems in this collection. Especially the title story, a delightful and tragic tale - most of the stories are quite darker and violent than I would have expected from Russell. Not necessarily a bad thing though.

SO GOOD !!! i have never liked short story anthologies but i loved this so much :,) my favs are vampires in the lemon grove, the horses (which is what talking animals by joni murphy should’ve been) and the veteran w the tattoo, which made me want to sob. karen russel’s writing is so beautiful & her ideas are amazing <3 

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

erin alise 

Colton Ray

savannah eden

vive

garnet

laia

Aubrey Hicks

Ana Hein

Sarah

Jill Roby

Matalin Hansen

An awkward teen with a terrible haircut has a reversal of fortune when he finds artefacts from the future lining a seagulls’ nest. In a godforsaken barn, Presidents Eisenhower, John Adams and Rutherford B. Hayes are bemused to find themselves reincarnated as horses. Clyde and Magreb – he a traditional capes-and-coffins vampire, she the more progressive variety – settle in an Italian lemon grove in the hope that its ripe fruit will keep their thirst for blood at bay. ‘Russell can take Antarctic tailgaters, an army of seagulls or simply a window and twist a tale that explodes on the page and lingers in the mind’ The Times

Vampires in the Lemon Grove Stories

Reviews

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