Mark Mahaney for The New York Times This week in The New York imes Book Review, Joy Williams reviews “Vampires in the Lemon Grove,†the new collection of short stories by Karen Russell. Ms. Williams writes:
Start with a mustard seed of irrelevant fact. Rutherford Hayes’s wife, Lucy, was the first American president’s wife to be referred to as the first lady. Scribble this on a scrap of paper and present it to Karen Russell. Tell her she has to write a story about this old dead guy and reincarnate him as a horse. Give her a couple of pencils. Put her in a locked safe à la Houdini. Tie one arm behind her back. Give her the sniffles. Let her go after a modest interval and see what she comes up with: the hilarious, impossibly realized, even moving, story “The Barn at the End of Our Term.â€
Ms. Williams goes on to write that, “It’s hard not to reflect on the origins of this wildly talented young writer’! s ideas or puzzle over the serene assurance she brings to her unusual choices.â€
On this week’s podcast, Ms. Russell talks about “Vampires in the Lemon Groveâ€; Leslie Kaufman has notes from the field; Adam Kirsch discusses two new biographies of Sylvia Plath; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host.
