Synopses & Reviews
Most Anticipated Great Books of 2017, The Millions
"Who knows what youth is really looking for?" Meidav asks in the nonfiction coda to this dazzling story collection. The dynamic characters in The Kingdom of the Young are searching: for adventure, work, love, absolution, better chances elsewhere. In surreal fables, dream-spun travelogues, conflicted confessionals and more, Meidav creates a revelatory and wholly original world in sparkling, unforgettable prose.
Review
"An alchemist of empathy, of nuanced observation and unexpected truths, Edie Meidav is a writer whose every magical story probes human experience from triumphs to tragedies and all the terrain between. Kingdom of the Young is nothing short of masterful, the work of a born storyteller in full, glorious voice." Bradford Morrow, author of The Forgers
Review
"Edie Meidav’s writing is a cascade of fireworks. Her ideas are little bombs — and these stories, fast-spinning sparklers. Her hallucinatory prose flares with color and heart." Leela Corman, author of Unterzakhn
Review
"These stories are dazzling, full of knowledge of the world and of the heart, and written with the pluck and thrum of a flamenco guitarist. Meidav draws you into world after world; she makes you want to sit by your window and listen all night." Paul La Farge
Review
"Kingdom of the Young will engage readers for its clear authority, musical language and its surprising empathy." Gary Shteyngart
Review
"A probing and deeply ruminative cross-genre odyssey. Meidav pulls readers through a series of dreamy, complex, poignant stories with language that is by turns gauzy-poetic and pinpoint-precise but unfailingly inventive.... A penetrating collection that glides among an impressive breadth of storytelling modes with warmth and easy brilliance." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Synopsis
"Ambitious, original, deliciously philosophical.
Kingdom of the Young invites comparison to the
cr nicas of Clarice Lispector and the
fabulas of Italo Calvino." --Carolyn Cooke, author of
Daughters of the Revolution The dynamic characters in Kingdom of the Young are searching: for adventure, work, love, absolution, better chances elsewhere. In a symphonic stream of consciousness, a fanatical child army loses faith in its commander as he ages unforgivably into his thirties. A woman possessed with wanderlust and a small inheritance seeks love among the cave-dwelling Roma in Granada. Traumatized war veterans run local rackets; smarmy bureaucrats rise through the ranks of repressive regimes; civilians attempt to escape the stranglehold of life under dictatorships. From the honeycombed caves outside the Alhambra to the streets of Havana, from hospital wards to quincea era parties, these stories--along with the collection's illuminating nonfiction coda--testify to Meidav's vast imaginative range.
Edie Meidav is the author of three novels--The Far Field, Crawl Space, and Lola, California. Her honors include a Lannan Literary Award, the Kafka Award for Best Novel by an American Woman, the Bard Fiction Prize, a Whiting Award, and a Howard Fellowship. She teaches in the University of Massachusetts MFA program and lives in Amherst.
About the Author
Edie Meidav is the author of three novels: The Far Field, Crawl Space, and Lola, California. Her honors include a Lannan Literary Award, the Kafka Award for Best Novel by an American Woman, the Bard Fiction Prize, a Whiting Award, and a Howard Fellowship. Work from Kingdom of the Young appeared in Conjunctions and American Literary Review, among other places. She teaches in the University of Massachusetts MFA program and lives in Amherst.