Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
The blurb calls it a "magical" new collection of stories. I'd call it "dark imaginacal". Because they are truly strange stories, mind-bending and eerie. The worlds a little out of joint, always. Karen Russell's plots twist and twirl and suck you in--from the first words you're in it for the duration. And then you are her willing slave, her puppet to dangle above a staged world of disturbing images. Her nightmares are your nightmares.
The book is worth picking up for one story alone: Reeling For the Empire. In short--girls are recruited to work in a silk factory. But soon, they are the silk factory and you're one of them.
(At least, I was one of them. I have a good imagination, too.)
I recommend the audiobook--your local library ought to have it. The various stories are read by different artists, each one a master of many voices. We get so used to special effects in the movies, we forget the power of the individual--in this case, the actor who could evoke so many different dead presidents, voice and phrasing and style, so real it made you laugh.
My only tiny quibble is that in each story, a couple of scenes should have been self-edited--out. Especially in The New Veterans, a story about a massage therapist treating an Iraqi war vet...at times the story twisted and turned and folded back in on itself and I got a tad annoyed at its failure to advance as I expected. But I wouldn't volunteer to choose which scenes could go without weakening the narrative.
No comments:
Post a Comment