A dimly-lit photograph of Lauren Groff against a dark grey background

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Interviews

Lauren Groff interview: ‘It’s necessary to me that there’s sex in a book’

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Extracts

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

The Vaster Wilds

I could not stop reading. A haunting, thrilling, gripping and rich. An unputdownable adventure, a mystery and a strange beautiful redemption

Groff is a mastermind, a masterpiece creator, an intoxicating magician. I wait with impatience for every book and I am always surprised and delighted. The Vaster Wilds feels like her bravest yet, hallucinatory, divine, beyond belief but also entirely human

There is something exhilarating about this novel, a velocity of ambition . . . Groff is not lost in the forest. She knows exactly where she is going

Her writing has a timeless quality . . . [Groff] has a nose for moments of transcendent, almost holy natural beauty

Another September title that we've been desperately waiting for&mdash; Lauren Groff, author of Matrix is back, with an electrifying new novel set in early colonial America; seventeenth century Jamestown, to be precise. A servant girl is working for her mistress who has a disabled daughter. She is devoted to the family but then abruptly leaves, heading into the wilderness, with just a few items and a spiritual spark inside of her. This is the start of the servant girl's journey &mdash; an utterly thrilling adventure in which she discovers the world around her and tries to find a different way to live in the face of colonialism. Written in Goff's trademark visceral prose, this haunting book will stay with you long after you've finished it. Fact

Lauren Groff is one of the finest novelists of our age. Her writing is searingly beautiful - delicate and powerful at the same time. The voice of the unnamed girl is haunting and the descriptions of the wild lands are deliciously poetic. The Vaster Wilds first grabs you tenderly and then refuses to let go. It's exquisite, heart-wrenching and utterly mesmerising

As always, Groff&rsquo;s prose is finely worked, with a poet&rsquo;s eye for imagery (a porcupine walks &ldquo;his bristles through the undergrowth with the weary pomp of a crowned prince&rdquo;) and a visionary quality that recalls Matrix

Groff writes in prose that sparkles . . . this beautifully written, soulful book is partly a fable and partly a treatise on greed: an exhortation for mankind to be satisfied with his lot, something we would all do well to heed

Of the many distinctions of this rich and visionary novel, perhaps the greatest is its prose. The Vaster Wilds presents us with a powerful alternative vision of the settlement of America: one not of a struggle between civilisation and savagery, in which European men felt &ldquo;a need to set their boots upon everything they saw&rdquo;, but of a resourceful young woman working with nature to establish a new life. Barack Obama picked two of Groff&rsquo;s previous books &mdash; Fates and Furies in 2015 and Matrix in 2021 &mdash; as his novels of the year. It would be no surprise if The Vaster Wilds made it a third

Groff&rsquo;s prose is anointed with an agitated, near transcendent intensity&hellip;In setting her alongside the likes of Hernan Diaz, and his Pulitzer Prize- winning Trust (2022), Groff&rsquo;s books makes her one of an exciting new generation of American novelists who are using fiction to rewrite the founding myths of the so- called Land of Liberty

Her storytelling has such raw virtuosity that the book is hard to put down. A page-turner which should appeal to Bear Grylls fans and feminists alike

Between these memories, scenes mostly consist of the girl&rsquo;s triumphs and misfortunes as she traverses the land. These make for gripping reading, the life-or-death implications made clear, even when the setback is as small as a mislaid pair of gloves. It is here that Groff&rsquo;s spellbinding prose comes fully into play, as she describes the glory of the natural world, even in moments when it is at its most unforgiving

It&rsquo;s a novel of bleakness and beauty, as the relentless demands of eking out a life wreck her &lsquo;good strong dancing body&rsquo;, while the wonders of nature leave her spirit &lsquo;ravished'

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Exhilarating' GUARDIAN 
'Her writing has a timeless quality' THE TIMES 
'[Has] a visionary quality' OBSERVER 
 
A profound and explosive novel about a spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive 
 
A servant girl escapes from a settlement. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief of everything that her own civilization has taught her. 
 
The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how -and if - we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.

Arcadia

Powerful and affecting…Captures a five-year-old’s consciousness with rare, almost mystical intensity, this is a vivid, original and generous-hearted book.

An exquisite tale of idealism and disintegration…Utterly absorbing.

Richly peopled and ambitious and oh, so lovely, Lauren Groff's Arcadia is one of the most moving and satisfying novels I've read in a long time. It's not possible to write any better without showing off.

The raw beauty of Ms. Groff’s prose is one of the best things about Arcadia ... stunningly sensual and visceral in describing behaviour straight out of a time capsule… extraordinarily rich imagination, she writes about this life as if she has known it.

Intricately wrought ... A powerful paean to the human desire to make the right sort of place to live.

Smart, beautiful, rooted in an earthy and glorious location ... Groff’s beautifully written Arcadia paints a lyrical picture ... You fall in love with Arcadia’s protagonist, Bit, and find yourself transported to a different time, place and lifestyle.

Arcadia, her second novel, cements all of Groff’s promise, and then some…Deft-structural and convincing authorial control…Wonderful stuff.

With Arcadia, Groff has woven her own tale, in eloquent prose that’s rich in sense of place and depth of feeling

The novel’s greatest strength is its vision of the violent fecundity of nature…Groff excels in writing with a kind of fairy-tale lucidity…The book’s structure and imagery are full of delightful intricacies and cruel ironies.

One of our most talented writers, and Arcadia one of the most revelatory, magical and ambitious novels I've read in years.

Kate Walbert, author of the New York Times bestselling novel A Short History of Women

'Stunningly sensual and visceral' NEW YORK TIMES 
'Smart, beautiful . . . paints a lyrical picture' STYLIST 
'Groff is a sensuous writer' GUARDIAN 
 
In the fields of western New York State in the 1970s, on the grounds of a decaying mansion called Arcadia House, a few dozen idealists set out to live off the land. Abe and Hannah's only child, Bit, is born into the commune soon after its creation. He grows up there, becoming deeply attached to its way of life and everyone within it, in particular the beautiful but troubled Helle. While the commune rises and falls, Bit, too, ages and changes. But when it's time to find a way to live in the world beyond Arcadia, will he be able to let go of the past to forge a new start? 
 
'An exquisite tale of idealism and disintegration . . . Utterly absorbing' MARIE CLAIRE 
'Intricately wrought . . . A powerful pean to the human desire to make the right sort of place live' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 
'Arcadia is stunningly sensual and visceral in describing behaviour straight out of a time capsule . . . A shimmering evocation of the commune's heyday' NEW YORK TIMES

And Other Stories

Delicate Edible Birds

...begins with a story set in the sort of mythical small town of plenty that Krasikov's characters might dream of...Here Groff peers behind the white picket fence to reveal a nastier underside; other stories take in World War II, and transpose the tale of Heloise And Abelard to New York in 1918.

Groff's first collection of stories, Delicate Edible Birds, demonstrates the often surprising ways that quality can bear fruit. Bringing together nine stories, it moves almost effortlessly through different locales, from Templeton to Argentina, post-first world war New York to contemporary America ... in her strongest writing, Groff echoes the magic of her gothic forebears

Delicate Edible Birds is wonderfully imaginative, subtle and precise, brimming over with brave and fascinating women... A dazzling collection to make all those readers who are wary of short stories think again.

'Echoes the magic of gothic forebears' FINANCIAL TIMES 
'Groff is a writer of rare gifts' NEW YORK TIMES 
'Lauren Groff is a virtuoso' Emily St John Mandel 
 
Delicate Edible Birds is a short story collection from acclaimed writer Lauren Groff. Spanning from 1910s New York to Second World War France and contemporary America, these dazzlingly varied stories full of fervour and insight cement Groff as one of the foremost talents of her generation. 
 
'One of the most original voices in literature today' ESQUIRE 
'A literary star' i NEWSPAPER

Florida

Florida is a magnificent collection, executed with tremendous depth and precision, unsettling in the best possible way. Lauren Groff is a virtuoso.

Emily St John Mandel, author of Station Eleven

Don’t tell yourself you don’t like short stories, because these are not to be missed. The book is deep and dark and resonant. Every story plays in some way on the others and in the end the total is worth even more than the sum of its beautiful parts.

It’s beautiful. It’s giving me rich, grand nightmares.

Florida feels innovative and terribly relevant. Any one of its stories is a bracing read; together they form a masterpiece.

This is what she shows in story after story: a heroic pushback against the way we live now, against waste, against the artificial environments in which we find ourselves maintained by corporations, but equally against the pressures on women to be flawless, effortlessly excellent mothers, wives, sisters, lovers, friends, within this dire state of affairs … Groff’s lyrical and oblique stories catch these women in the midst of becoming aware of their complicity in perpetuating these narratives – to which their response is to walk, flee, or conversely refuse to budge, as in the dazzlingly apocalyptic ‘Eyewall’ … The hot, humid Floridian atmosphere hangs over all the stories … Every woman, every snake, is fighting back against the laws of nature, and the human-made Eden that threatens to imprison, or end, them all.

A lushly evocative collection of stories about the Sunshine State, its inhabitants and its history … Mesmerising … In her previous book, Fates and Furies — which was picked by Barack Obama as his favourite read of 2015 — Groff painted a psychologically rich portrait of a marriage as told from both sides. She brings the same attention to detail to Florida, in a multifaceted portrayal of both the state and its inhabitants … The Florida winter wraps itself around “camellias and peach trees and dogwoods and oranges”, but it is the summer she captures so well … She’s a writer whose turn of phrase can stop you in your tracks … Something untameable lurks restlessly beneath the surface of this book. Groff’s incomparable prose pulsates with peril; its beauty, like that of the titular state itself, lies in a certain wild lushness.

The collection testifies to Groff’s brilliance as a writer of both places and people. She grapples with interpersonal relations and the inner lives of others with perceptiveness, wit and emotional engagement.

Easily the year’s best story collection . . . these indelibly vivid tales read like inoculations against cynicism.

She is an example of writers who can do everything – dialogue, structure, the throb and hum of inner life – so brilliantly. The result is so heady and evocative, you’ll be wafting away imaginary heat waves and checking your room for scaly threats as you read, while Florida’s cast of lost, sad and sometimes cruel characters will stick with you far longer.

An unsettling, stinging collection that feeds on Florida’s paradoxes.

She boldly explores conflicts and connections between everything from humans and their natural surroundings to pleasure and pain.

These psychological stories, whose impeccable structures are at odds with the chaos they often describe, provide glimpses into a variety of lives under the same tempestuous sky.

One of the most eagerly anticipated short story collections of the year.

A connoisseur of the tension between appearance and depth. Her dazzling third novel, Fates and Furies, a portrait of a marriage built on secrets, was nominated for the National Book Award. Her new collection plunges into similarly murky terrain … There is more than a little of David Lynch in Ms Groff's Floridian landscape: exotic and bright, yet pulsing with hidden malevolence … Real and metaphorical storms proliferate, along with ghosts, alligators and snakes. Two menaces in particular slither through Ms Groff's work: the obliteration of women by marriage and motherhood, and looming environmental collapse … Against these threats Ms Groff sets the particularity of individual lives, love and above all language. Her own is alive to Florida's lush, beguiling beauty … Ms Groff's writing is marvellous, her insights keen, each story a glittering, encrusted treasure hauled from the deep.

Explores the contradictions of a maddening and seductive state … Female characters in the collection find themselves isolated and endangered, exposed and compelled to let the elements have their way with them.

Though Groff moves adroitly through an impressive range of lives, times, and places, the stories often seem propelled more by a supercharged pathetic fallacy than by action and character . . . the landscape and fauna seem to make metaphor on a monumental scale. . . . The book stages an intriguing relationship between the individual and the collective . . . Climate change, though explicitly addressed only in glances, is a palpable threat, given a force still unusual in fiction by a treatment that makes it hard to distinguish from interior phenomena.

the collection testifies to Groff’s brilliance as a writer of both places and people. She grapples with interpersonal relations and the inner lives of others with perceptiveness, wit and emotional engagement

The realism of Groff’s stories is matched by her lyricism: botanical details and evocations of weather give her prose an addictive quality

There are panthers, snakes and hurricanes heading in the direction of the angry, lonely characters in Lauren Groff's vivid stories, but the greatest threat comes from their own unwieldy feelings, as doubt, regret and dissatisfaction scupper all notions of emotional security.

Lush, and tinged with paranoia…[Groff] should be better known in Britain.

My god, can Lauren Groff write or what?! ... This short story collection showcases a master craftswoman whose sentences reverberate with depth and power.

[A] strikingly vivid Florida of the mind…an extraordinary trip for the reader.

Groff's writing is clever, caustic yet with a mother's tender sensibility. And such powers of description!... I was blown away!

Groff's writing is superb and she captures her characters eccentricities or their bizarre situations perfectly. There are laugh out loud moments with some parts that were odd and some even creepy. Everyone who will read this collection will definitely get something out of it.

Groff's mastery of language, plot and dialogue are on full display in a set of stories that linger long after you've closed the last page.

[A] masterclass in writing about the edges of everyday life. This collection of short stories that all link to the Sunshine State captures loneliness, alienation, abandonment and inner resourcefulness in the most creative of tales.

Fantastical tales ... You'll be swept up in a wild hurricane of a ride with this lyrical stories of fury and love, loss and hope.

Each story is perfectly formed, exquisite, often troubling but there is something so brilliantly humane about her work.

'Magnificent . . . Lauren Groff is a virtuoso' Emily St John Mandel 
'A blistering collection . . . lyrical and oblique' Guardian 
'Not to be missed . . . deep and dark and resonant' Ann Patchett 
'It's beautiful. It's giving me rich, grand nightmares' Observer 
 
In these vigorous stories, Lauren Groff brings her electric storytelling to a world in which storms, snakes and sinkholes lurk at the edge of everyday life, but the greater threats are of a human, emotional and psychological nature. Among those navigating it all are a resourceful pair of abandoned sisters; a lonely boy, grown up; a restless, childless couple; a searching, homeless woman; and an unforgettable conflicted wife and mother. 
 
Florida is an exploration of the connections behind human pleasure and pain, hope and despair, love and fury. 
 
'Innovative and terrifyingly relevant. Any one of these stories is a bracing read; together they form a masterpiece' Stylist 
'Lushly evocative . . . mesmerising . . . a writer whose turn of phrase can stop you on your tracks' Financial Times

The Monsters of Templeton

Lauren Groff's debut novel, The Monsters of Templeton, is everything a reader might have expected from this gifted writer, and more ... There are monsters, murders, bastards, and ne'er-do-wells almost without number. I was sorry to see this rich and wonderful novel come to an end, and there is no higher success than that.

THE MONSTERS OF TEMPLETON is a bold and beautiful hybrid of a book...Lauren Groff is an exciting young novelist, gifted with an elegant prose style and a narrative ambition as deep and as serious as the human mysteries she sets out to explore.

Groff's delightful debut is a glorious hybrid of history and humour, with just a sprinkling of magic.

This cracking tale, admirer Stephen King gleefully says, is full of "monsters, murders, bastards and ne'er do-wells". Yet Lauren Groff's remarkable debut is not a horror at all...as Willie slays her demons by slowly but surely excavating her family tree, the novel blossoms into a crossbreed of intimate confession, eccentric social history, origin myth and literary biography... the true 'monsters' of Templeton are its secrets.

This has an opening to die for ... a riveting read

Lauren Groff's debut novel, The Monsters of Templeton, is everything a reader might have expected from this gifted writer, and more. Willie is a funny, sexy, plucky heroine; her Mom--a once-upon-a-time hippie who's gone Baptist but not square--is a hoot; her family history is a funhouse through which Willie must wander in order to find her father. Best of all is Templeton, a town that will remind readers of Ray Bradbury at his most magical. There are monsters, murders, bastards, and ne'er-do-wells almost without number. I was sorry to see this rich and wonderful novel come to an end, and there is no higher success than that.

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF FATES AND FURIES AND MATRIX 
 
'Everything a reader might have expected from this gifted writer, and more' Stephen King 
 
'Bold and beautiful' Lorrie Moore 
 
'Pleasurably surreal' Guardian 
 
'Will give you paper cuts from turning pages' Marie Claire 
 
Willie Upton returns to her ancestral home of Templeton, New York after a disastrous affair with her married archaeology professor. 
 
The same day, Willie discovers a hard truth about her long-lost father's identity and a prehistoric monster is discovered in the nearby Lake Glimmerglass, bringing frenzy to the quiet town and her life. 
 
As Willie investigates her family tree, dark secrets come to light, past and present are blurred and old mysteries are finally put to rest. The Monsters of Templeton is an extraordinary novel by literary virtuoso Lauren Groff. 
 
'A vivid tale of unearthing past truths, horrors and lies' Good Housekeeping

Fates and Furies

Enough betrayal, vengeance and sex to read like one of the Greek tragedies

Paula Hawkins, author of THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

A lyrical and, at times, astonishingly beautiful account of how little it is possible to know about those closest to us.

Addictive to read ... Groff has drawn a woman so complex it seems that with every chapter a new layer is revealed, each as deliciously intriguing as the next … The result is a compelling portrait of an unconventional marriage across two decades.

[A] stunning achievement. The plotting is elegant, intricate and assured . . . it will give you much to savour.

Absorbing and beautifully written, this is a riveting study of love, power and creativity.

A truly special novel ... if you haven't read her before, I'm delighted to take the credit for introducing you to one of your new favourite authors.

A searing exploration of how far a person will go for love, loyalty and revenge.

Rare and impressive… Groff has created a novel of extraordinary and genuine complexity…The word “ambitious” is often used as code for “overly ambitious”, a signal that an author’s execution has fallen short. No such hidden message here. Lauren Groff is a writer of rare gifts, and Fates and Furies is an unabashedly ambitious novel that delivers – with comedy, tragedy, well-deployed erudition and unmistakable glimmers of brilliance throughout.

A book to submit to and be knocked out by.

A dazzling novel ... At once intimate and sweeping, this is the story of a marriage as parallel myths-- flaring with passion and betrayal, with redemption and retribution, with the sort of heart-breaking, head-slapping secrets that make you want to seek out someone else who's read it. Lauren Groff is a powerful and graceful writer, one of the best of her generation.

Barack Obama’s favourite book of last year (and getting on for ours too), Fates and Furies is finally coming out in paperback. The tale of a marriage in parallel myths is a truly delicious story.

[An] ingenious novel ... buttressed by real emotional power

Devastatingly good, with the most satisfying ending I've read in a long time. The writing is gorgeous, the plot twisting, and the characters are almost too real.

A clear-the-ground triumph ... Groff captures the complicated ways love blesses, transforms and, yes, deceives us over many years…There’s a touch of F. Scott Fitzgerald in this glamorous story… Halfway through, Groff leverages her story in a remarkable and transformative way … A vertiginous ride that will shake your confidence in what you think you know about your spouse — and yourself.

There are echoes of Gone Girl in this vivid, poetic examination of a marriage that isn’t all it seems.

Groff’s lush writing has a compelling awareness of what is unsaid.

With Fates and Furies Lauren Groff goes many levels below the surface of a marriage, into a place that is perhaps as hard to reach as it is to describe, but Groff, a bold and marvellous writer, is able to do both. Because she’s so vitally talented line for line and passage for passage, and because her ideas about the ways in which two people can live together and live inside each other, or fall away from each other, or betray each other, feel foundationally sound and true, Fates and Furies becomes a book to submit to, and be knocked out by, as I certainly was.

Meg Wolitzer, bestselling author of THE INTERESTINGS

Exhilaratingly complex and addictive to read…It is Mathilde – quiet, aloof, mysterious – who steals the story.Groff has drawn a woman so complex it seems that with every chapter a new layer is revealed, each as deliciously intriguing as the next…Fates and Furies, all 390 pages of it, had me captivated to the end…Lauren Groff has sculpted a genuinely authentic protagonist in Fates and Furies…The result is a compelling portrait of an unconventional marriage across two decades.

A playful and riveting read that questions whether love can be true when it's wrapped in falsehoods.

Groff is an original writer, whose books are daringly nonconformist; she has a sharp gift for mimesis...Admirably, she writes inside and outside history at once, refusing to play safe by merely contouring the known…Fates and Furies refuses to be a conventional domestic novel…[The language is] thrillingly good – precise, lyrical, rich, both worldly and epically transfiguring…The prose is not only beautiful and vigorously alert; it insists on its own heroic registration, and lifts this story of a modern marriage out of the mundane. Even Lotto and Mathilde’s sex is grand and yet wittily figured.

Even from her impossibly high starting point, Lauren Groff just keeps getting better and better…But her new novel, Fates and Furies, is a clear-the-ground triumph ... Not yet 40, Groff nonetheless captures the complicated ways love blesses, transforms and, yes, deceives us over many years…Groff writes in prose that seems to sigh with both adoration and exasperation. There’s a touch of F. Scott Fitzgerald in this glamorous story… Halfway through, Groff leverages her story in a remarkable and transformative way … A vertiginous ride that will shake your confidence in what you think you know about your spouse — and yourself … Swelling with a contrapuntal symphony of passions, Fates and Furies is that daring novel that seems to reach too high — and then somehow, miraculously, exceeds its own ambitions.

My favourite book of 2015 was Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies ... I felt as though I could have gone on reading it forever.

Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff’s remarkable new novel, explodes and rages past any such preconceptions, insisting that the examination of a long-term relationship can be a perfect vehicle for exploring no less than the nature of existence – the domestic a doorway to the philosophical…Rare and impressive…The aforementioned wordplay evokes Nabokov…Groff has created a novel of extraordinary and genuine complexity…Lauren Groff is a writer of rare gifts, and Fates and Furies is an unabashedly ambitious novel that delivers – with comedy, tragedy, well-deployed erudition and unmistakable glimmers of brilliance throughout.

Fates and Furies is a dazzling novel, its people and its prose wondrously alive from page one. At once intimate and sweeping, this is the story of a marriage as parallel myths-- flaring with passion and betrayal, with redemption and retribution, with the sort of heart-breaking, head-slapping secrets that make you want to seek out someone else who's read it. Lauren Groff is a powerful and graceful writer, one of the best of her generation.

Jess Walter, bestselling author of BEAUTIFUL RUINS

Audacious and gorgeous…Deliciously voyeuristic but also wise on the simultaneous comforts and indignities of romantic partnership…In her previous work Groff proved herself a deft prose stylist, translating the familiar into the remarkable and transcendent. Fates and Furies further showcases this talent…In Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff has taken the struggles and pleasures of marriage and turned them into art, and in that artfulness she reminds us of the dangers and omissions that any storytelling requires.

Fates and Furies is devastatingly good, with the most satisfying ending I've read in a long time. The writing is gorgeous, the plot twisting, and the characters are almost too real – the only thing that keeps it from being the Platonic ideal of a novel is that it can only be read for the first time once. The only response that seemed sufficient in the hours after finishing it was to send several dozen roses, a cake, and my heart to Lauren Groff.

[Fates and Furies is] an engrossing portrayal of a marriage and of life – or how a marriage impacts a life – and is packaged into a deeply poetic and engaging novel of two halves… With frequent asides and a love letter to literature, theatre and art in its pages, Lauren Groff has created something truly incredible… It’s a clever, thought-provoking novel that questions the very notion of how possible it is to ever know someone entirely, all told in such a beautifully crafted way that I’m sure many new readings will be found with each much-deserved re-read.

In a swirling miasma of language, plot, and Greek mythology, Groff weaves a fierce and gripping tale of true love gone asunder…Groff's prose is variously dewy, defiant, salacious, and bleak – a hurricane of words thrown together on every page. Yet so much of the power in this book lies in what's unspoken…It's an intoxicating elixir.

Fates and Furies will keep you gripped until the end. It’s a fascinating study of how relationships are sustained and sacrificed…it is sumptuously written at every turn. For an autumn read to get firmly stuck into, look no further.

An absorbing story of a modern marriage framed in Greek mythology...The plotting is exquisite, and the sentences hum; Groff writes with a pleasurable, bantering vividness . . . An intricate plot, perfect title, and a harrowing look at the tie that binds.

Fates and Furies captures the vagaries of passion and marriage in ebullient prose.

Like a classic tragedy, Groff’s novel offers high drama, hubris, and epic love, complete with Greek chorus–like asides. A singular and compelling literary read, populated with extraordinary characters; highly recommended.

Comparisons to Gone Girl seem on the surface to fit perfectly. We have a golden couple, Lotto and Mathilde, we have a dark past – like Amy, Lotto is an heir to a large fortune. Yet Fates and Furies is far more subtle – Groff is considering the very nature of story-telling itself… I was reminded more than anything of Macarthy’s The Group... The fates and furies who narrate the novel are never intrusive, their interventions are rare and they pass on the whole unnoticed, but I felt that this worked better than a more grandiose presence might have done. Through them, Groff channels a grace for her protagonists – this is not a story of heroes and villains but rather of humans who long to be better than they are.

An exploration of marriage that turns expectations upside down, all told through the snarkiest omniscient narrator since Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.

Guardian (Readers' Books of the Year 2015)

Fates and Furies is a lyrical and, at times, astonishingly beautiful account of how little it is possible to know about those closest to us

[An] ingenious novel…buttressed by real emotional power.

There are two sides to every story and the author delivers both of them with brilliant authenticity. A must read.

My favourite book of 2015 was Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies (although I’m sure lots of people will pick this one!). I was given it by a friend and devoured it in two days. I felt as though I could have gone on reading it forever.

A truly brilliant book which I completely fell in love with.

A forensic dissection of marriage, lyrically told.

THE NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Enough betrayal, vengeance and sex to read like one of the Greek tragedies' Observer 
 
'Devastatingly good' Guardian 
 
'Astonishingly beautiful' Financial Times 
 
'Addictive to read' Stylist 
 
'Rich, lyrical and rewarding' Paula Hawkins 
 
Every story has two sides. 
Every relationship has two perspectives. 
 
And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. 
 
'Groff is a writer of rare gifts' New York Times 
 
'Sexy and achingly beautiful' Good Housekeeping 
 
'A really powerful novel' Barack Obama 
 
'A book to submit to and be knocked out by' Meg Wolitzer

Matrix

Visionary leader, queer lover, 12th-century writer ... the life of Marie de France is triumphantly reimagined in an assertively modern novel about female ambition and creativity... a highly distinctive novel of great vigour and boldness. From mystical visions that may or may not be divine, to the earthy business of abbey pigs, diseases and account books, Groff does it all with purpose and panache

Groff's writing is muscular and precise, her themes wildly resonant. Women are dismissed and contained, subject to misogynist attacks and abuse, but gain power collectively - "alone, together". Shockingly, this message is as poignant today as it was, perhaps, 800 years ago

A dazzlingly clever tale . . . gorgeously precise prose, always elegantly weighted and perfectly economical

This is a remarkable novel: unusual, profound, transcendental

A thrillingly vivid, adventurous story about women and power that will blow readers' minds. Left me gasping.

An audacious piece of storytelling, full of passion, wisdom and magic

How mesmerising can twelfth century nuns be, even in the hands of Lauren Groff? I had barely started it before I was bloody well blaspheming with delight. Matrix is a gorgeous, sensual, addictive read.

Transcendent prose and vividly described settings bring to life historic events, from the Crusades to the papal interdict of 1208. Groff has outdone herself with an accomplishment as radiant as Marie's visions.

From the moment you're introduced to Marie, a queer, fierce warrior woman riding across the countryside on her warhorse, you feel as though you've time-travelled back to the Middle Ages. Groff's prose is arresting and unforgettably visceral . . . It's impossible not to feel galvanised by Marie's resilience, independence and determination to make her mark in a world ruled by men. I'll be thinking about Matrix for a long time to come

Enchanting and intriguing, Matrix absorbs the reader into the medieval period without compelling them to depart entirely from the present

It's a bold, luminous tale that captivates from first to last.

A robust and pleasingly strange slice of historical fiction

Lauren Groff's Matrix is just marvellous; vivid and vibrant, it hums with the lives of those contained within the convent walls, as Marie becomes the ambitious and canny hub at the heart of this female utopia.

Groff offers a world that is rapturous, rapacious, ecstatic, profane; a novel of seismic revelations.

Matrix explores the story of Marie de France, a young woman sent to languish in a struggling convent that she begins to transform through her own leadership. Both epic and intimate, this sweeping novel explores questions of female ambition, creativity and passion with electrifying prose and sparkling wit. A propulsive, captivating read.

Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half

Matrix is alive with lust and glory. In the incandescent Marie de France - visionary, cantankerous and uncowed by the constraints of her sex - Groff paints a portrait of sisterhood that shines out of the past and into the lives of women today.

C Pam Zhang, author of Booker-longlisted How Much of These Hills is Gold

Animated with sensual detail on every page and filled with lush, gripping storytelling that cuts to the bone, MATRIX resonates right into the present moment. I never thought I would find myself longing to be a medieval nun but Groff is a worker of wonders. This book is a ferocious joy

Lushly textured and uniquely vivid, Matrix settles itself on your mind like a dream or vision - it's absolutely stunning

It's as brightly lit as an illuminated manuscript and would make the most perfect Christmas present imaginable

Full of sharp sensory detail, it's balm and nourishment for brain, heart and soul

Matrix takes the mysterious life of the late 12th-century poet - known today for her romantic lais - and runs with it . . . Groff explores themes of domination, death and desire in compelling (if at times, stomach-turning) detail

However, like Groff's earlier novel, this becomes a vivid, immersive and at times wild account of female agency

In Lauren Groff's hands, the tale of a medieval nunnery is must-read fiction

A marvelously told story of devotion, desire and ambition in the heart of a female utopia

Matrix is another masterpiece from a writer whom few at this point can best

Through Marie, Groff explores how a society's religious and gendered constraints can be turned on their head to create a utopia

[A]n electric reimagining . . . feminist, sensual, magisterial, de France's saga is one of hardship and triumph, an unforgettable character whose far-seeing vision and devotion to the nuns in her community enable them to transcend what threatens to erase and silence them

Matrix focuses less on Marie the author and more on Marie the abbess - and if you think that doesn't sound like the obvious angle for a fun and engaging story, you underestimate the scope of Groff 's imagination and talent

In these incandescent pages, Groff reverently imagines her way into the life and lore of Marie de France . . . Woven from Groff's trademark ecstatic sentences and brimming with spiritual fervor, Matrix is a radiant work of imagination and accomplishment

Thrilling and heartbreaking, Groff crafts an electric work of historical fiction

A transportive and meditative tale that will swallow you up from the very start

Groff, a premier stylist . . . .continues to grow, taking on a medieval foremother's story in her latest novel. The voice she finds for Marie de France . . . .will hold readers fast as the exiled Angevin royal becomes abbess of a convent, leading her charges through historic upheavals

With her unparalleled gift for sumptuous, sublime prose, Groff paints an engrossing portrait of a woman who, despite living in a world bound by constraints, experiences a life rich with passion and creativity. Surrounded by a supportive sisterhood, Marie uses strength and ingenuity to subvert the oppression of the patriarchy

Splendid with rich description and period vocabulary, this courageous and spin-tingling novel shows an incredible range for Groff (FLORIDA, 2018), and will envelop readers fully in Marie's world, interior and exterior, all senses lit up. It is both a complete departure and an easy-to-envision tale of faith, power, and temptation.

In this bildungsroman about the real-life 12th-century poet Marie de France, a teenage Marie is exiled to a blighted Benedictine nunnery, where she finds strength and power as a prioress

Powerful, sapphic historical novel . . .  Richly realized with historical details that don't overwhelm

Readers will recognize her stunning prose and grand, mythic perspective. . . .  in a tale that feels both ancient and urgent, as holy as it is deeply human

The pages are almost completely devoid of men - seen, but not heard - with Groff using poetic, melodic and yet fierce writing to breathe volume into themes of power, ambition and success from the perspective of women

[A] propulsive, enchanting, and emotionally charged read

A clever spin on the story of Marie de France

I loved this accomplished piece of storytelling. So much so, I added it to my Booker wish list at the last minute, a wish not fulfilled, of course

Matrix is a rich, beautifully written novel about ambition and desire, and also witchy separatist medieval nuns

Medieval life can seem far from our modern grasp, but Groff vividly describes the daily workings of the convent, from prayers to practical chores. She has done her research and it shows in the rich details she provides of working the fields, preparing meals, governing novices . . . magical, a beautiful evocation of what women can achieve and what they can mean to each other

[A] feminist foray into a medieval nunnery that is stunning in its labyrinthine artistry and sensual tracing of life as lived during the era of the poet Marie de France and the legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine

A[n] artful writer, Groff has no need for fantastic artifice to construct a world without men. She . . . gives us an extraordinary protagonist . . . Anyone who has read Groff's previous novels and stories knows that this author's greatest virtue is her economy of prose. A disciplined writer . . . If "Eleanor's best currency is story," that goes double for Groff . . . Groff's "Matrix" simultaneously transports us to a backward world that once was and the grim future that seems inevitable. And all this through the eyes of a group of extraordinary women who decline to live lives of quiet desperation

[A] transcendently beautiful novel with sensuality, religious ecstasy, gender and power explorations, and a fair bit of tasteful gore. It's surprisingly delicious to read fiction about a historical figure we know so little about 

I'm on page 17 and now nothing else matters . . . Once you have this book in your hands I feel certain you too will be consumed

[D]reamy prose . . . At its heart, the book's message is simple: joy can exist in darkness

[A] relentless exhibition of Groff's freakish talent . . . an unforgettable book . . . ecstatic, refulgent, God-struck, heretical

[A] creative, intelligent work that will last

The real Marie de France may continue to elude historians but the speculative fiction in Matrix combine to produce an unfailingly absorbing novel

An uplifting novel in its own unique way, and up there with Groff's best work

Matrix forms an intensely focused character study, but also succeeds as  a probing exploration of female power

A beautiful and beguiling novel that transports the listener utterly and completely to another world

Against a convincingly filthy and precarious medieval backdrop, Marie is a figure of dazzling complexity

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS 
AN OBAMA'S BOOK OF THE YEAR 
 
'Gorgeous, sensual, addictive' SARA COLLINS 
'Brightly lit' NAOMI ALDERMAN 
 
Born from a long line of female warriors and crusaders, yet too coarse for courtly life, Marie de France is cast from the royal court and sent to Angleterre to take up her new duty as the prioress of an impoverished abbey. 
 
Lauren Groff's modern masterpiece is about the establishment of a female utopia. 
 
'A propulsive, captivating read' BRIT BENNETT 
'Fascinating, beguiling, vivid' MARIAN KEYES 
'A dazzlingly clever tale' THE TIMES 
'A thrillingly vivid, adventurous story about women and power that will blow readers' minds. Left me gasping' EMMA DONOGHUE

Lauren Groff

Few collections have an opener as powerful and instantly classic as Brawler's 'The Wind' ... For most writers, [it] would be an impossible act to follow, and yet every story here continues a conversation about secrets, hopes, fears and the persistence of love in the face of it all. ... Brawler captures a towering talent and follows protagonists caught in the undertow of their messiest emotions. As one character says, “in every human there is both an animal and a god wrestling unto death”. Groff’s bargain with the reader is simple, and impossible to refuse: instead of easy epiphanies, she offers glimpses of acute clarity, meaning or happiness. They will not repeat; but they are enough to carry you through a life.

I'm in awe at how Groff conjures a whole world in each brilliant story.

These are stories of fracture and survival, of the fulcrums on which lives tilt. On finishing Brawler, the world felt more densely peopled, richer with stories. Groff reminds us of the myriad human galaxies all around us, spinning off brightly into the dark.

You'll want to put this short-story collection at the top of your list. The characters you'll meet here balance responsibility with human fallibility across locations, years, and identities. You'll walk away feeling more connected to other people, all of whom are simply trying, and with more compassion for yourself.

Nine tales with a common theme: characters' grappling with their better and worse instincts. Groff has a gift for capturing human nature and the compulsions that drive us.

It's truly a joy to be alive at the same time as someone whose work is so consistently excellent.

Groff is a great writer. Her stories chew you up and spit you out and leave you feeling immensely satisfied.

Groff's latest collection crisscrosses America from the 1950s to the present day in nine stories about troubled mothers, damaged daughters, ruined siblings and marriages that look like they're heading for the rocks. The opening story, 'The Wind', is an emotional gut - punch as a woman attempts to escape her violent cop husband. The moving 'Brawler' sees diver Sara ready to fight the world as she copes with her neurotic, ill mother, while the slow poison of privilege infects the lives of alcoholic, unpredictable Chip and his protective sister in the compelling 'What's The Time, Mr. Wolf?'.

In the coiling dread and frank feminism of her work, this incandescent author makes clear with her newest fiction why she won the 2022 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. This audacious collection surprises readers with the vivid lives few of us notice.

A gorgeous collection about families transformed by desperate circumstances … Groff sketches her characters with scalpel-like precision … Each of these heartbreaking tales will linger in the reader’s mind.

Thrillingly complex, wickedly strong girls and women populate the worlds of Groff's third story collection. In total command of her characters' nuances and the gray space they find themselves in, Groff shares brief, cryptic yet revealing notes about each story at book's end, for the cherry on top.

THE LATEST SHORT STORY COLLECTION FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MATRIX 
 
'Brawler captures a towering talent.' 
FINANCIAL TIMES 
 
'Groff conjures a whole world in each brilliant story.' 
CLAIRE FULLER 
 
'You'll walk away feeling more connected to other people and with more compassion for yourself.' 
HARPER'S BAZAAR 
 
'Groff reminds us of the myriad human galaxies around us, spinning off brightly into the dark.' 
MELISSA HARRISON 
 
Ranging from the 1950s to the present day and moving across age, class, and region - from New England to Florida to California - these nine stories reflect and expand upon a single shared theme: the ceaseless battle between the dark and light in all of us. 
 
Among those caught in this match are a young woman suddenly responsible for her disabled sibling; a hot-tempered high school swimmer in need of an adult; a mother blinded by the loss of her family; and a banking scion endowed with a different kind of inheritance. Motivated by love, impeded by human fallibility, they try to do the right thing for as long as they can. 
 
Precise, surprising and provocative, anchored by profound insight into human nature, Brawler reveals the repeated fracture points between love and fear, compassion and violence, reason and instinct, altruism and survival. It is a timeless, stunning achievement from one of the very best short story writers working today. 
 
Praise for Lauren Groff 
 
'Her writing has a timeless quality' The Times on The Vaster Wilds 
'Groff's writing is muscular and precise, her themes wildly resonant' Sunday Times on Matrix 
'An audacious piece of storytelling, full of passion, wisdom and magic' Sarah Waters on Matrix 
'It's as brightly lit as an illuminated manuscript' Naomi Alderman on Matrix 
'One of its stories is a bracing read; together they form a masterpiece' Stylist on Florida 
'She's a writer whose turn of phrase can stop you in your tracks' Financial Times on Florida 
'Easily the year's best story collection' Vogue on Florida

Lauren Groff

Books by Lauren Groff

Articles featuring Lauren Groff

Lauren Groff interview: ‘It’s necessary to me that there’s sex in a book’

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

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