Vampires in the Lemon Grove

Vampires in the Lemon Grove

Summary

On Strong Beach, an awkward teen with a terrible haircut has a reversal of fortune when he finds artefacts from the future lining a seagulls’ nest. By the Hox River in Nebraska, a window fuels both family pride and deadly revenge. In a godforsaken barn in what they suspect is Kentucky, Presidents Eisenhower, John Adams and Rutherford B. Hayes are bemused to find themselves reincarnated as horses. And in the collection’s title story, 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.

Karen Russell is an audacious talent with a wicked sense of humour, and this hotly anticipated new collection confirms her place as a master of the short story form, and one of the most imaginative young writers at work today.

Reviews

  • 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 the author

Karen Russell

Karen Russell is the bestselling author of two novels and several books of short stories. The winner of a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant, she was also named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists in 2007 and New Yorker’s 20 under 40. Her first novel Swamplandia! was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and the Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Women's Fiction Prize; her collection St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Her new novel The Antidote will be published in 2025.
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