Synopses & Reviews
In the tradition of Lorrie Moore, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Rebecca Lee, this debut story collection cuts into the sometimes dark heart of the American family From the tense territory of a sagging, grand porch in Texas to a gated community in steamy Thailand to a lonely apartment in nondescript suburbia, these linked stories unwind the lives of three families as they navigate ever-shifting landscapes. Wry and sharp, dark and subversive, they keep watch as these characters make the choices that will change the course of their lives and run into each other in surprising, unforgettable ways. The Bowmans are declining Texas gentry, heirs to an airline fortune, surrounded by a patriarch's stuffed trophies and lost dreams. They will each be haunted by the past as they strive to escape its force. The Fosters are diplomats’ kids who might as well be orphans. Jill and Maizie grow up privileged amid poverty, powerless to change the lives of those around them and uncertain whether they have the power to change their own. The Guzmans have moved between Colombia and the United States for two generations, each seeking opportunity for the next, only to find that the American dream can be as crushing as it is elusive. Amy Parker's debut collection considers--with an unfailingly observant eye--our failures and our successes, our fractures and our connections, our impact and our evanescence. She marks herself a worthy heir to the long tradition of smart women casting cool and careful glances at the American middle class.
Review
Praise for Laura van den Berg
“There is a special kind of magic in the writing of van den Berg, a damp-eyed sorceress who blends the mythological with the everyday, buoyant playfulness with lacerating sadness. Each sentence reads like a beautiful bruise smeared across pages as pale as the bodies that so often strip off their clothes and tangle together in these tender, elegant stories.” —Benjamin Percy
Review
“The stories in Laura van den Bergs dreamy The Isle of Youth are absolutely captivating.”—Vanity Fair
"The Isle of Youth, is a smart, fun, noir-y treasure map of where families hide their secrets and lost souls hide themselves. Van den Berg somehow packs a duffel bag of plot into carry-on-size stories. She also has the right kind of range: from brutal to moving to funny, South America to Paris to Antarctica, really great to freaking outstanding." —Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine
“Van den Berg excels at complexity, eccentricity, maximalism of plot . . . Her emphases on elaborate plot and intentional loose ends are a refreshing departure from the contemporary taste for tidy, minimal plot paired with maximal voices.” —The New Inquiry
“Discovery of the month.” —O. Magazine
“If ever there was a writer going places, its Laura van den Berg, who follows up her debut collection, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, with the ambitious, modular The Isle of Youth, whose seven stories are arranged along the themes of family secrets with noirish intrigue.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A mesmerizing collection of stories about the secrets that keep us.” —Kirkus
“In The Isle of Youth, a group of young women narrators seek to understand the people in their lives as a means of understanding themselves. Magically, Laura van den Berg turns a group of lost souls into a beautiful and compelling read.” —Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto
“Laura van den Berg is one of the most freakishly talented young writers at work today, and a master of the short story form. Hers are deliciously unnerving, moving, and monstrous tales.” —Karen Russell, author of Vampires in the Lemon Grove and Swamplandia!
“Ive never met Laura, but it seems like we would come across a new story by her every month or so during our reading for Best American Nonrequired Reading. They were uniformly excellent—emotionally complex, very raw—but always with a mixture of pathos and humour that made me think of Lorrie Moore.” —Dave Eggers, Huck magazine
“The Isle of Youth is simply astonishing. Each story is more surprising, more urgent, more savagely frank than the last. This is an awe-inspiring and necessary collection from one of the most sure-footed writers of our time.” —Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Battleborn
“This collection is rich, surprising, and a lot of fun. The Isle of Youth plays with crime stories of a kind, noir tales of deceit and betrayal, but really each investigates the spaces, the distances, that keep human beings from ever truly knowing one another. Van den Berg is a ridiculously talented writer, and this wonderful book provides the proof.” —Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver
Review
"Wonder and mystery are recurring motifs. The women here are one step ahead of disaster or one step behind it, and either way they are eager to discover whats next . . . Van den Berg, in this wonderful collection, never lets us turn away." —
Natalie Serber, The New York Times Book Review"Confident, gripping stories . . . Ms. van den Berg spins complex plots around a sense of emotional emptiness. Her stories are bursting at the seams, while her characters are lonely to the core." —John Williams, The New York Times
“The stories in Laura van den Bergs dreamy The Isle of Youth are absolutely captivating.”—Vanity Fair
"The Isle of Youth, is a smart, fun, noir-y treasure map of where families hide their secrets and lost souls hide themselves. Van den Berg somehow packs a duffel bag of plot into carry-on-size stories. She also has the right kind of range: from brutal to moving to funny, South America to Paris to Antarctica, really great to freaking outstanding." —Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine
"Darting, shifting things . . . though her stories find footing in dark matter, the reader ends up feeling something akin to having been freed by the end of the reading . . . [a] tremendous collection." —Weston Cutter, Minneapolis Star Tribune"If you like Murakamis cool prose, that Raymond Chandler-esque aloofness in the face of strange events, have I got the book for you . . . [The Isle of Youth] is a small book, but it feels much bigger. I could have kept reading for days." —Rosecrans Baldwin, NPRs All Things Considered“Curiosity—sprung from idleness, neglect, or betrayal—is a force to be reckoned with in these delicately layered narratives linked by themes of mystery and survival …Van den Berg gracefully captures such unseen moments of triumph and failure as lives are derailed—and discovered—in her stories.” —ELLE Magazine“If you like your female protagonists quirky, questing, and quixotic, you will adore this story collection and the authors ability to bore into her characters innermost thoughts, piercing straight through to their red-hot centers.” - O, The Oprah Magazine“van den Bergs sophomore collection of mysterious stories follows likeable ladies with dangerous behavior.” - Marie Claire“Amusing and absorbing…” - Glamour“With her latest collection of seven stories, The Isle of Youth, Laura van den Berg gives readers a great place to maroon themselves…even though much remains unresolved, van den Bergs stories are still revelatory.” — The Cleveland Plain Dealer“…takes wry pleasure in reversing expected gender roles…Ms. van den Berg is perceptive about the ways that her characters—many of them demoralized wives—feel trapped within their identities and grasp at unwise escapes.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal“A master of the short story creates seven elaborate worlds with beautiful and haunting characters at a time when it feels like most short story collections are pretty thinly plotted.” - Esquire"The small, genuine and insightful moments at the heart of each tale mark the progress of a distinguished young writer." —Time Out New York
“Van den Berg excels at complexity, eccentricity, maximalism of plot . . . Her emphases on elaborate plot and intentional loose ends are a refreshing departure from the contemporary taste for tidy, minimal plot paired with maximal voices.” —The New Inquiry
“You know how were always going on about how this is a really good time for fans of short stories? Laura van den Berg is one of the best examples of why that is totally true, and this new collection on FSG should be all the proof you need. She is at the head of the pack when it comes to young writers that are more comfortable with the shorter form.” —Jason Diamond, Flavorwire
“A sturdy short story collection works like a good album: strong piece by piece, but also on the whole. “I Looked for You, I Called Your Name” is as strong an opener as Ive ever seen in a book of short stories, and it sets the tone and pace for the rest of Laura van den Bergs second work, The Isle of Youth.” —Grantland
“If ever there was a writer going places, its Laura van den Berg, who follows up her debut collection, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, with the ambitious, modular The Isle of Youth, whose seven stories are arranged along the themes of family secrets with noirish intrigue.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A mesmerizing collection of stories about the secrets that keep us.” —Kirkus
“In The Isle of Youth, a group of young women narrators seek to understand the people in their lives as a means of understanding themselves. Magically, Laura van den Berg turns a group of lost souls into a beautiful and compelling read.” —Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto
“Laura van den Berg is one of the most freakishly talented young writers at work today, and a master of the short story form. Hers are deliciously unnerving, moving, and monstrous tales.” —Karen Russell, author of Vampires in the Lemon Grove and Swamplandia!
“Ive never met Laura, but it seems like we would come across a new story by her every month or so during our reading for Best American Nonrequired Reading. They were uniformly excellent—emotionally complex, very raw—but always with a mixture of pathos and humour that made me think of Lorrie Moore.” —Dave Eggers, Huck magazine
“The Isle of Youth is simply astonishing. Each story is more surprising, more urgent, more savagely frank than the last. This is an awe-inspiring and necessary collection from one of the most sure-footed writers of our time.” —Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Battleborn
“This collection is rich, surprising, and a lot of fun. The Isle of Youth plays with crime stories of a kind, noir tales of deceit and betrayal, but really each investigates the spaces, the distances, that keep human beings from ever truly knowing one another. Van den Berg is a ridiculously talented writer, and this wonderful book provides the proof.” —Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver
Review
"Reading
Beasts and Children, I was struck not only by Amy Parker's incisive and skillfully crafted sentences but by the depth and integrity with which she treats every one of her characters. A beautiful and engaging debut." – Molly Antopol, author of
The Unamericans “Intense, beautiful, and true, the stories in Beasts and Children speak to that catastrophe known as childhood: the loneliness and fleeting camaraderies; the perilous gaps of adult attention and soul-saving intimacy with the natural world. In her remarkable debut, Amy Parker proves herself an unflinching, passionate, and profoundly humane writer, even as she holds a knife to your heart.” –-Michelle Huneven, author of Blame and others
“Amy Parker's stories are thrillingly self-possessed. They stand perfectly poised, like balancing artists, between the lyrical and the no-nonsense, the impassioned and the restrained. She has a gift for uncloaking the mysteries of her characters, particularly the children, who themselves struggle to uncloak the mysteries of the great big world of other minds into which they've been born: friends and grown-ups, strangers and parents, humans and animals alike. I was moved and fascinated by this book. I'll be first in line to read her next.” – Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Brief History of the Dead and others
Synopsis
An NPR Best Book of 2013
Laura van den Berg's gorgeous new book, The Isle of Youth, explores the lives of women mired in secrecy and deception. From a newlywed caught in an inscrutable marriage, to private eyes working a baffling case in South Florida, to a teenager who assists her magician mother and steals from the audience, the characters in these bewitching stories are at once vulnerable and dangerous, bighearted and ruthless, and they will do what it takes to survive.
Each tale is spun with elegant urgency, and the reader grows attached to the marginalized young women in these stories--women grappling with the choices they've made and searching for the clues to unlock their inner worlds. This is the work of a fearless writer whose stories feel both magical and mystical, earning her the title of "sorceress" from her readers. Be prepared to fall under her spell.
Synopsis
Laura van den Bergs gorgeous new book, The Isle of Youth, explores the lives of women mired in secrecy and deception. From a newlywed caught in an inscrutable marriage, to private eyes working a baffling case in South Florida, to a teenager who assists her magician mother and steals from the audience, the characters in these bewitching stories are at once vulnerable and dangerous, bighearted and ruthless, and they will do what it takes to survive.
Each tale is spun with elegant urgency, and the reader grows attached to the marginalized young women in these stories—women grappling with the choices theyve made and searching for the clues to unlock their inner worlds. This is the work of a fearless writer whose stories feel both magical and mystical, earning her the title of “sorceress” from her readers. Be prepared to fall under her spell.
An NPR Best Book of 2013
Synopsis
In the tradition of Lorrie Moore, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Rebecca Lee, this debut linked-story collection cuts into the sometimes dark heart of the American family.
About the Author
Laura van den Bergs debut story collection, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, a finalist for the Frank OConnor International Short Story Award, a finalist for the ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award, and long-listed for the Story Prize. Her stories have appeared in One Story, Conjunctions, Ploughshares, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008, and Best New American Voices 2010, among other publications. A Florida native, she has an MFA from Emerson College and is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize and scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers Conferences. She lives in the Boston area.
Laura van den Berg on PowellsBooks.Blog
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