Orange world and other stories

After Russell's Vampires in the Lemon Grove (2013), one might think that Orange World would have a citrusy element, but instead it's code for all the domestic hazards threatening newborns. Yet household dangers are the least of the fears plaguing Rae during a precarious pregnancy, and late one night her cries for help summon the Devil. He or, more accurately, it doesn't want her soul in exchange for saving her baby; instead, it wants to be breastfed. Their grotesque pact is one of an array of shocking pairings in this ingenious, reality-warping, darkly funny, and exquisitely composed story collection rooted in myth and horror. MacArthur Fellow Russell writes with mischievous clarity, wit, and conviction, grounding the most bizarre situations in the ordinary. A young desert traveler is possessed by the furious spirit of a Joshua tree; a teen loves a mummified girl he pulls from a bog. Historical moments seed some tales, including The Prospectors, a sublime Depression-era ghost story about two young women grifters; while others leap ahead, such as The Gondoliers, in which sisters use echolocation to navigate a submerged Miami. Heir to Shirley Jackson and a compatriot of T. C. Boyle, virtuoso Russell, gifted with acute insights, compassion, and a daring, free-diving imagination, explores the bewitching and bewildering dynamic between the voracious appetite of nature and its yawning indifference and humankind's relentless profligacy and obliviousness.--Donna Seaman Copyright 2019 Booklist

The inimitable Russell (Vampires in the Lemon Grove) returns with a story collection that delights in the uncanny, parlaying the deeply fantastical to reflect the basest and most human of our desires. In "The Bad Graft," an eloping young couple, Angie and Andy, go hiking at Joshua Tree National Park. They've arrived during peak pulse event season, when yucca moths swarm and "the Joshua tree sheds a fantastic sum of itself." This refers to both pollination and a Joshua tree's so-called Leap, during which Angie becomes the human vessel for the tree's spirit. In "The Tornado Auction," Robert Wurman is a former tornado farmer, retired now after decades of raising tornadoes for "weather-assisted demolition." His spontaneous decision to purchase a young tornado begins to spiral out of control as the tornado grows larger and more destructive, and he is forced to face the ramifications of his choices on his family. And in the title story, a mother desperate to save her child makes a deal with the devil, allowing the devil to breast feed from her in exchange for protection and peace of mind. Each story is impeccably constructed and stunningly imagined, though not all of them land emotionally. Regardless, this is a wonderfully off-kilter collection. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Russell's third collection beckons like a will-o'-the-wisp across the bog, with eight crisp stories that will leave longtime fans hungry for more.Since her debut more than a decade ago, Russell (Sleep Donation, 2014, etc.) has exhibited a commitment to turning recognizable worlds on their heads in prose so rich that sentences almost burst at the seams. Her third collection is no exception, and its subjectsforgotten pockets of violent American history, climate-related apocalypse, the trials of motherhoodfeel fresh and urgent in her care. Russell takes an expansive view of history, excavating past horrors and imagining the contours of real terror on the horizon. In "The Prospectors," two society-savvy gold diggers must fight their way out of a haunted ski lodge without attracting the wrath of long-dead Civilian Conservation Corps men killed by an avalanche on the job. Even within the framework of her ghost story, Russell remains attuned to the performances women mount in order to survive the threat of male violence: "People often mistake laughing girls for foolish creatures," cautions the narrator. "They mistake our merriment for nerves or weakness, or the hysterical looning of desire. Sometimes, it is that. But not tonight." In "The Tornado Auction," a widowed farmer risks it all to return to his callingrearing tornadoes on the Nebraskan plainsover the protests of his three grown daughters. "I saw, I understood, that in fact I had always been the greatest danger to my family. I was the apex predator," he muses after a terrible accident, exhibiting the guilt and regret of a loving father who nevertheless finds it difficult to change his ways. While the title story, "Orange World," offers a chillingand insightfuldepiction of motherhood as a real-life devil's bargain, it dips a toe in the realm of schlocky and crude horror uncharacteristic of Russell's other work. The result is mixed even though the story retains Russell's hallmark narrative strengths: a narrator who butts up against the edge of her own expectations and a strange, uncanny world that yields a difficult solution to a familiar emotional problem. "Rae admits that she is having some difficulties with nursing....There is no natural moment in the conversation to say, Mother, the devil has me."A momentous feat of storytelling in an already illustrious career. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

*Starred Review* After Russell's Vampires in the Lemon Grove (2013), one might think that "Orange World" would have a citrusy element, but instead it's code for all the domestic hazards threatening newborns. Yet household dangers are the least of the fears plaguing Rae during a precarious pregnancy, and late one night her cries for help summon the Devil. He—or, more accurately, it—doesn't want her soul in exchange for saving her baby; instead, it wants to be breastfed. Their grotesque pact is one of an array of shocking pairings in this ingenious, reality-warping, darkly funny, and exquisitely composed story collection rooted in myth and horror. MacArthur Fellow Russell writes with mischievous clarity, wit, and conviction, grounding the most bizarre situations in the ordinary. A young desert traveler is possessed by the furious spirit of a Joshua tree; a teen loves a mummified girl he pulls from a bog. Historical moments seed some tales, including "The Prospectors," a sublime Depression-era ghost story about two young women grifters; while others leap ahead, such as "The Gondoliers," in which sisters use echolocation to navigate a submerged Miami. Heir to Shirley Jackson and a compatriot of T. C. Boyle, virtuoso Russell, gifted with acute insights, compassion, and a daring, free-diving imagination, explores the bewitching and bewildering dynamic between "the voracious appetite of nature and its yawning indifference" and humankind's relentless profligacy and obliviousness. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews.

MacArthur Fellow Russell, whose string of best-booked titles started with Swamplandia!, returns with nine wickedly fun stories, four published in The New Yorker. Two favorite scenarios: a young man falls in love with a 2,000-year-old girl he's excavated from a Florida peat bog, and the spirit of a giant tree accidentally invades a young woman visiting Joshua Tree National Park.

The award-winning author Russell (Swamplandia) grabs hold of her readers with eight deeply weird, wildly inventive, irresistibly horrifying tales and doesn't let go until the last page. A young couple explore Joshua Tree National Park. When Angie is accidentally pierced by a piece of bark, the tree's spirit and Angie's boyfriend Andy battle mightily for her heart and soul. Fifteen-year-old Cillian falls in love with a well-preserved 2000-year-old corpse of an adolescent girl who has been excavated from an Irish bog. He brings her home and refuses to let her go, much to the distress of his mother. In 1620, a Greek island surgeon to the deceased—he cuts the hamstrings of fresh corpses so they cannot roam around as the undead—panics as his reputation, dependent on complete success, is threatened by a rumor. Four sisters use their inherited echolocation skills to taxi people through a postapocalyptic Florida, now underwater for decades, thanks to climate change. In the title story, pregnant Rae is terrified of losing yet another fetus to miscarriage. She makes a pact with the Devil—she nurses him over a storm drain every night in exchange for the safety of her baby son. VERDICT Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 12/17/18.]—Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI (c) Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The inimitable Russell (Vampires in the Lemon Grove) returns with a story collection that delights in the uncanny, parlaying the deeply fantastical to reflect the basest and most human of our desires. In "The Bad Graft," an eloping young couple, Angie and Andy, go hiking at Joshua Tree National Park. They've arrived during peak pulse event season, when yucca moths swarm and "the Joshua tree sheds a fantastic sum of itself." This refers to both pollination and a Joshua tree's so-called Leap, during which Angie becomes the human vessel for the tree's spirit. In "The Tornado Auction," Robert Wurman is a former tornado farmer, retired now after decades of raising tornadoes for "weather-assisted demolition." His spontaneous decision to purchase a young tornado begins to spiral out of control as the tornado grows larger and more destructive, and he is forced to face the ramifications of his choices on his family. And in the title story, a mother desperate to save her child makes a deal with the devil, allowing the devil to breast feed from her in exchange for protection and peace of mind. Each story is impeccably constructed and stunningly imagined, though not all of them land emotionally. Regardless, this is a wonderfully off-kilter collection. (May)