Synopses & Reviews
These five stories follow young women living far from home, coping with new and often unfamiliar rules, as they confront the compelling circumstances of adult love. The rich, unforgettable tales in this collection, set in Southeast Asia and on the Indian subcontinent, showcase a writer of exceptional talent, one of today's most gifted and exciting young voices.
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“Freudenberger is...a fantastic writer.” Houston Press
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“Throughout the book...are moments of sharp humor and wise insight.” Los Angeles Times
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“In simple, elegant prose, she renders foreign landscapes with unsentimental precision.” Vogue
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“Skillful and assured...Freudenbergers prose is smooth. Raleigh News & Observer
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“Lucky Girls is a beautiful story that has a graceful simplicity.” People
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“[Freudenbergers] stories have the complex nuances of a mature writer.” Speakeasy magazine
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“Extraordinary stories.” The Journal News
Synopsis
First highlighted in The New Yorker fiction issue, here is award-winning writer Nell Freudenberger's debut story collection
Lucky Girls is a collection of five novella-like stories, which take place mostly in Asia. The characters--expatriates, often by accident--are attracted to the places they find themselves in a romantic way, or repelled by a landscape where every object seems strange. For them, falling in love can be inseparable from the place where it happens.
Living according to unfamiliar rules, these characters are also vulnerable in unique ways. In the title story, a young woman who has been involved in a five-year affair with a married Indian man feels bound to both her memories and her adopted country after his death. The protagonist of "Outside the Eastern Gate" returns to her childhood home in Delhi, to find a house still inhabited by the impulsive, desperate spirit of her mother, who left her family for a wild journey over the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan. In "Letter from the Last Bastion," a teenage girl begins a correspondence with a novelist who's built his reputation writing about his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam and who, in his letters, confides in her a secret about his past.
Highly anticipated in the literary community and beyond, Lucky Girls marks the debut of a very special talent that places her among today's most gifted young writers.
About the Author
Nell Freudenberger's collection of stories, Lucky Girls, was a New York Times Notable Book and won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2005 Freudenberger was the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award. She lives in New York City.