Status
Available
Publication
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.
Description
"From the Pulitzer finalist and universally beloved author of the New York Times best sellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, a stunning new collection of short fiction that showcases her extraordinary gifts of language and imagination"--
User reviews
LibraryThing member lisapeet
I called this "delightful" elsewhere, and I think that's going to be my standing adjective for this collection, in all senses of the word. I love how you can see Russell's imagination at work, the "what if?" behind every story—whether it's (perhaps) a photograph she may have seen, or a news item,
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or a question in her own head, there's this wonderful authorial inquisitiveness bubbling under the surface of each one. Some are set in the past, some in the future; there's quite a bit of magical realism—not always my favorite trends in recent short fiction—but it's more on the allegorical tip and it works for me here. Altogether just a very enjoyable collection. Show Less
LibraryThing member Beamis12
What Russell has accomplished with these stories are hard to describe, but I'll try. She takes what often starts off as a relatively normal situation, and then pulls the stories into a surreal world. One never knows when, how or even why it happens but it does. I'm always in awe of authors who have
This is a strong work. Eight stories, all but one I liked, the first, The Prospector my favorite. There is humor, horror, unbelievable happenings accepted as normal. They are strange, but always recognizable, the emotion true. In short, very unexpected, different, and executed well.
"Look," he says dreamily, and points to where the moon is rising, bright and enormous as the door to another Galaxy, on the opposite side of the bay."
ARc from Edelweiss.
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this kind of imagination, and write so well that the reader accepts these situations as they are. Fiendish!This is a strong work. Eight stories, all but one I liked, the first, The Prospector my favorite. There is humor, horror, unbelievable happenings accepted as normal. They are strange, but always recognizable, the emotion true. In short, very unexpected, different, and executed well.
"Look," he says dreamily, and points to where the moon is rising, bright and enormous as the door to another Galaxy, on the opposite side of the bay."
ARc from Edelweiss.
Show Less
LibraryThing member sleahey
This is a collection of short stories to be savored. After reading Swamplandia I expected fine writing, but my expectations were exceeded. Karen Russell 's style is elegant, lyrical, and accessible, with memorable turns of phrase. The stories may seem bizarre, but the plots move along and capture
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our attention, and although the characters and their situations may be incredible and even distasteful, at the same time we believe in them and care. Show Less
LibraryThing member nancyjean19
Karen Russell is one of my favorite writers around today. While I enjoyed all of her word choices - "koalaing" as verb was adorable, for example – I preferred the stories that hewed a bit closer to reality, with something mystical thrown in. "The Bad Graft" and "Orange World" were my favorites,
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though I did like the post-climate change twist of "The Gondoliers," too. Looking forward to her next work, as always! Show Less
LibraryThing member tapestry100
Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell is a collection of eight previously published short stories.
The Prospectors - A ghost story of loss, love, and moving on, one of my favorites from the collection.
The Bad Graft - A bizarre scifi horror story about Joshua trees.
Bog Girl: A Romance - A
Madame Bovary's Greyhound - This exactly what it is, a short story about Madame Bovary's Greyhound. Having never read Madame Bovary (no shaming!), I'm not familiar with how the Greyhound's story plays out there, but this story seemed to be touched with a flavor of The Call of the Wild. I don't know that the ending of this story would hit as hard if the reader did not own a dog of their own.
The Tornado Auction - Tornadoes are grown at farms and one farmer deals with the mistakes of his life.
Black Corfu - A posthumous surgeon, who cuts the hamstrings of the deceased to keep them from rising from their graves is accused of making a mistake and not performing a surgery properly. As a result, the doctor must deal with the rumors that surround this error, which possibly cause him to go insane. Not my favorite of the collection.
The Gondoliers - Young mutant girls ferry passengers thru a dystopian flooded future Florida.
Orange World - A new mother makes a deal with a devil to keep her baby safe. Clearly an allegory of the fear all mothers must have about the safety of their baby.
The first four stories are the strongest for me. The Tornado Auction was an interesting idea, but didn't quite have the same punch as the first four. The final three stories are the weakest for me, especially Black Corfu. That one really didn't work at all for me. Overall, a solid collection, and even I can attest that the stories that were not to my liking are still written well. I'll be interested to read more of Karen Russell in the future.
The Prospectors - A ghost story of loss, love, and moving on, one of my favorites from the collection.
The Bad Graft - A bizarre scifi horror story about Joshua trees.
Bog Girl: A Romance - A
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young boy unearths a bog girl while cutting peat. A love affair ensues. Yes, it seems that weird.Madame Bovary's Greyhound - This exactly what it is, a short story about Madame Bovary's Greyhound. Having never read Madame Bovary (no shaming!), I'm not familiar with how the Greyhound's story plays out there, but this story seemed to be touched with a flavor of The Call of the Wild. I don't know that the ending of this story would hit as hard if the reader did not own a dog of their own.
The Tornado Auction - Tornadoes are grown at farms and one farmer deals with the mistakes of his life.
Black Corfu - A posthumous surgeon, who cuts the hamstrings of the deceased to keep them from rising from their graves is accused of making a mistake and not performing a surgery properly. As a result, the doctor must deal with the rumors that surround this error, which possibly cause him to go insane. Not my favorite of the collection.
The Gondoliers - Young mutant girls ferry passengers thru a dystopian flooded future Florida.
Orange World - A new mother makes a deal with a devil to keep her baby safe. Clearly an allegory of the fear all mothers must have about the safety of their baby.
The first four stories are the strongest for me. The Tornado Auction was an interesting idea, but didn't quite have the same punch as the first four. The final three stories are the weakest for me, especially Black Corfu. That one really didn't work at all for me. Overall, a solid collection, and even I can attest that the stories that were not to my liking are still written well. I'll be interested to read more of Karen Russell in the future.
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LibraryThing member Menshevixen
Gorgeous collection overall. Standouts for me include "Black Corfu" and "The Gondoliers."
LibraryThing member jphamilton
Let’s start with the word “inventive,” an attribute that belongs in any short story collection worth its pages. Karen Russell includes eight stories in this collection, and while not all are her best ever—the mechanics of that would be near impossible—every story here is wonderfully
You do sense a connection between some of these stories, a connection that links people planet-wide, our changing planet, our common crisis of the environment. Other connections are humor, magic, the surreal and spooky, and one I would call I-wish-I-had-come-up-with-that. She is such a superb storyteller. She must love to think what her writing does to the minds of her readers. Blowing someone’s mind is a phrase that has faded in our modern culture, but many of us are junkies for having that feeling, of seeing things from a new viewpoint that may just challenge your everyday thoughts. The New York Times said, “Her writing is particular and alive. Her imagination spills over the sink and hits the backsplash.”
“Bog Girl” is a story that reached out and grabbed me, even before the two-thousand-year-old girl who is dug up from the ancient bog is walking and staggering around. With tender loving care, a boy had unearthed her body, treasured her, and eventually carried her to his school in a sling. Later on, you realize he doesn’t want her to get too much attention, or to ask too much from him, even though their communications are very limited. The story was a most curious combination of archeology, love, and expectations.
Another story begins when two young lovers, Andy and Angie, struck out on their own, after ditching their jobs in Pennsylvania, and find their way to the California desert. The adventure is going along fine, until the story’s title, “The Bad Graft,” shows how apt it is. It all changes when the soul of a Joshua tree gets into Angie and takes possession of her. This metaphysical horror story is uncomfortably frightful, but so very intriguing—you cannot look away. The girl’s temperament changes and evolves, until their happy relationship starts showing some serious cracks. Your mind may be wondering what the hell is going on, but you also see that it’s still about two people in love getting along—though one of them has been possessed by a succulent. Hell, that happens all the time.
The last, and title story, “Orange World,” is another story that takes the reader to a new place. Rae is an expectant mother who’s suffering great pain and worries that her pregnancy is threatened. The answer to her problem is that she’ll make a deal with the devil. Whatever could go wrong there? All she has to do is breastfeed Satan. Later she wonders if she entered into this pact with the devil too quickly, maybe there were other options. To quote the book, “She took the first deal offered. She’s done a better job negotiating for the Subaru.” The story is a fascinating look at motherhood and commitment, and is very funny.
Two of my other favorites are, “The Prospectors,” about two women partying with a band of dead men in a mountaintop lodge, and “The Gondoliers,” about the highly evolved women poling their boats around the troubled waters of New Florida. I could just as easily include all the remaining stories here, but I must be going.
The Boston Globe said of Russell, “Her descriptions are twenty-first century Dickensian genius.” I find her stories most addictive. Many other short story writers are very creative and clever, but Russell has an alertness, a humor, and a slyly inventive taste to her work. I hope she enjoys writing them, as much as I do reading them.
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inventive and original. This is the short story collection that has stuck out in my mind for months. You do sense a connection between some of these stories, a connection that links people planet-wide, our changing planet, our common crisis of the environment. Other connections are humor, magic, the surreal and spooky, and one I would call I-wish-I-had-come-up-with-that. She is such a superb storyteller. She must love to think what her writing does to the minds of her readers. Blowing someone’s mind is a phrase that has faded in our modern culture, but many of us are junkies for having that feeling, of seeing things from a new viewpoint that may just challenge your everyday thoughts. The New York Times said, “Her writing is particular and alive. Her imagination spills over the sink and hits the backsplash.”
“Bog Girl” is a story that reached out and grabbed me, even before the two-thousand-year-old girl who is dug up from the ancient bog is walking and staggering around. With tender loving care, a boy had unearthed her body, treasured her, and eventually carried her to his school in a sling. Later on, you realize he doesn’t want her to get too much attention, or to ask too much from him, even though their communications are very limited. The story was a most curious combination of archeology, love, and expectations.
Another story begins when two young lovers, Andy and Angie, struck out on their own, after ditching their jobs in Pennsylvania, and find their way to the California desert. The adventure is going along fine, until the story’s title, “The Bad Graft,” shows how apt it is. It all changes when the soul of a Joshua tree gets into Angie and takes possession of her. This metaphysical horror story is uncomfortably frightful, but so very intriguing—you cannot look away. The girl’s temperament changes and evolves, until their happy relationship starts showing some serious cracks. Your mind may be wondering what the hell is going on, but you also see that it’s still about two people in love getting along—though one of them has been possessed by a succulent. Hell, that happens all the time.
The last, and title story, “Orange World,” is another story that takes the reader to a new place. Rae is an expectant mother who’s suffering great pain and worries that her pregnancy is threatened. The answer to her problem is that she’ll make a deal with the devil. Whatever could go wrong there? All she has to do is breastfeed Satan. Later she wonders if she entered into this pact with the devil too quickly, maybe there were other options. To quote the book, “She took the first deal offered. She’s done a better job negotiating for the Subaru.” The story is a fascinating look at motherhood and commitment, and is very funny.
Two of my other favorites are, “The Prospectors,” about two women partying with a band of dead men in a mountaintop lodge, and “The Gondoliers,” about the highly evolved women poling their boats around the troubled waters of New Florida. I could just as easily include all the remaining stories here, but I must be going.
The Boston Globe said of Russell, “Her descriptions are twenty-first century Dickensian genius.” I find her stories most addictive. Many other short story writers are very creative and clever, but Russell has an alertness, a humor, and a slyly inventive taste to her work. I hope she enjoys writing them, as much as I do reading them.
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LibraryThing member viviennestrauss
Out of the 8 stories, I absolutely loved 5 of them, 3 were good but a bit too long.
LibraryThing member janerawoof
Imaginative collection of short stories. The author pulls you into a surreal world with outlandish situations, after you think you are reading a "normal" short story beginning in the here and now. There are such things as a tornado farmer, a girl who is host to a parasitic Joshua tree, and in the
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title story, the mother of a newborn makes a Faustian bargain with the devil and breastfeeds him. Show Less
LibraryThing member grahzny
Fun page-turny weird lit. Lush but not sagging prose. Maybe one story in the whole collection which didn’t do it for me. Gonna go read everything else Russell has written.
Subjects
Awards
NPR: Books We Love (2019)
Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year (Short Fiction — 2019)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2019)