Description: Praise for Vampires in the Lemon Grove " Vampires in the Lemon Grove shows Ms. Russell more in control of her craft than everMs. Russell deftly combines elements of the weird and supernatural with acute psychological realism; elements of the gothic with dry, contemporary humor. From apparent influences as disparate as George Saunders, Saki, Stephen King, Carson McCullers and Joy Williams, she has fashioned a quirky, textured voice that is thoroughly her own: lyrical and funny, fantastical and meditativeUnderscores her fecund and constantly surprising storytelling giftsIn these tales Ms. Russell combines careful research with minutely imagined details and a wonderfully vital sleight of hand to create narratives that possess both the resonance of myth and the immediacy of something new." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Hilarious, exquisite, first-rateIt's hard not to reflect on the origins of this wildly talented young writer's ideasA grim, stupendous magic is at work in these storiesHer work has a velocity and trajectory that is little less than dazzling and a tough, enveloping, exhilarating voice that cannot be equaled." -Joy Williams, The New York Times Book Review "One of the most innovative, inspired short-story collections in the past decade Vampires in the Lemon Grove is flawless and magnificent, and there's absolutely no living author quite like Karen Russell." - NPR "Beautiful tales Vampires in the Lemon Grove should cement Russell's reputation as one of the most remarkable fantasists writing today." - Washington Post "Karen Russell's imagination is one again on full, Technicolor, mind-bending display If Vampires in the Lemon Grove is an indicator of the future, Russell's stories will be seizing our imaginations-and nibbling at the edges of our nightmares-for years to come." - Miami Herald "Witty, and wise, and brimming with vitalityIn Russell's stories, malice strolls with morality, horror tangos with humor, and the spirits of Franz Kafka and Flannery O'Connor meet with unexpected comityWith a voice that could spring from an unleashed demon-or an angel on amphetamines-Russell fills this exuberant collection with life's radiance and shadows, enhanced by the possibility of redemption." - Richmond Times-Dispatch "Delightfully weirdmoving." - Esquire "An eight-tale adrenaline-delivery system packed with long-married, problem-beset monsters, abandoned children whose lives are in dire peril, teens with creepy sixth senses, and masseuses with inexplicable healing powersDarkly inventive, demonically driven narratives set in the author's inimitable imaginative disturbia." - Elle "In these stories, familiar human emotions leap into relief against backdrops of almost Tim Burton-like weirdnessHer stories are as robust as can be. But they also look like something internal flipped out: us." - New York "A master of magical realismMs. Russell is at her best alternating between the wildly fantastical and the utterly banal, especially when she finds a way to fuse the two togetherThere is an exuberance to her descriptive abilities, a kind of ludic writerly joy in the process that translates to a readerly thrill in the results." - New York Observer "Wildly inventivewondrously strange and moving." - Reader's Digest "Russell's tales flirt with the fantastical, but are rooted in darker realitiesEven as she transforms the everyday into a wriggling bestiary, replete with colorful hallucinations and ghosts, her most haunting bits rely on the depiction of human impulses." - Mother Jones "PowerfulRussell pulls the rug out on our imagination, creating perplexing, surreal scenarios that bump into the common reality that most of us take for granted." - Minneapolis Star Tribune "Karen Russell casts another spell with her otherworldly collection of storiesIs she a Southern Gothicist? A parabolist? A moralist? Do her stories expand upon old histories, or create new, fantastical explanations for them? But the stories, without ever confining themselves to one genre or tradition, speak for themselves." - Bullett Magazine "Wildly imaginativegorgeousRussell has once again mapped the dark country between our everyday and more primal selves." - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "A darkly surreal treat." -Wired.com "Consistently arrestingstartlingprofoundEven more impressive than Russell's critically acclaimed novel." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Russell doesn't work small. She's a world builder, and the stranger the betterRussell's great gift-along with her antic imagination-is her ability to create whole landscapes and lifetimes of strangeness within the confines of a short story." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Russell returns to the story form with renewed daring, leading us again into uncharted terrain, though as fantastic as the predicaments she imagines are, the emotions couldn't be truer to lifeMind-blowing, mythic, macabre, hilarious." - Booklist (starred review) "The offbeat lusciousness of [ Swamplandia ] seems to be repeated in Russell's new story collectionDon't miss." - Library Journal

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