Discover the Penguin books that shaped us

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

Her work has a velocity and a trajectroy that is little less than dazzling and a tough, enveloping, exhilarating voice than cannot be equaled.

Joy Williams, New York Times

About Karen Russell

Karen Russell is the author of six books of fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. Swamplandia! was a New York Times Top Ten Book and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is a MacArthur Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and the recipient of the 2024 Mary McCarthy Award, the 2023 Bottari Lattes Grinzane Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, and two National Magazine Awards for Fiction. She was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists and selected for the New Yorker’s 20 under 40 list. Born and raised in Miami, Florida, she now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, son, and daughter.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • ISBN: 9780099578963
  • Length: 256 pages
  • Dimensions: 199mm x 17mm x 130mm
  • Weight: 185g
  • Price: £9.99
All editions