Synopses & Reviews
From Valerie Laken, the Pushcart Prize-winning author of
Dream House, comes a powerful collection of short stories charting the divisions and collisions between cultures and nations, families and outsiders, and partners and misfits searching for love. Set in Russia and the United States, these are boldly innovative stories—tales of fractured, misplaced characters moving beyond the borders of their isolation and reaching for the connections that will make them whole.
A family, shaken by an industrial accident, is divided, its members isolated in their home and only able to understand one another from their separate rooms. A young gay couple travels to Russia to meet the child they're desperately trying to adopt, but the experience reveals an emotional divide between the parents-to-be. A recent amputee removes herself from her body to keep her husband at bay. And the idyllic village life of a blind Russian boy is disrupted by an American dentist and the wonders of racy Western magazines. Separate Kingdoms is a rich and satisfying collection that traverses the distances between people and places in each marvelously rendered story.
Review
“Loss, temporary and permanent, physical and emotional, is the hard, gleaming thread tying together Lakens short-story collection. . . . An absorbing literary exploration of the geography of loss.” Kirkus Reviews
Review
“Vivid and evocative, these stories will appeal to readers of both popular and literary fiction.” Library Journal
Review
“[Laken] can turn out finely wrought observations on peoples miseries and bad choices like she grew up at Chekhovs knee. But she brings some extra juice, both playful and serious, to these eight tales. . . . A national talent.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Synopsis
“A work of daunting versatility and technical skill, the product of a writer absolutely at home in the language and working vigorously within both new and old forms.” —Michael Byers, author of
Long for this World and
The Coast of Good Intentions From Pushcart Prize-winner Valerie Laken, author of Dream House, comes a riveting short story collection charting the divisions and collisions between cultures and nations, families and lovers, selves and others in the United States and Russia. In the tradition of Lydia Peelle, Barbara Johnson, and David Mitchell, Laken creates incisive and illuminating portraits of characters coping with loss, estrangement, and disability, confined by their circumstances to separate kingdoms of the heart.
About the Author
Valerie Laken's work has appeared in such publications as Ploughshares, the Missouri Review, and the Chicago Tribune. The winner of a Pushcart Prize, she teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.