Synopses & Reviews
Praise for Lynne Tillman
"Lynne Tillman has always been a hero of minenot because I 'admire' her writing, (although I do, very, very much), but because I feel it. Imagine driving alone at night. You turn on the radio and hear a song that seems to say it all. That's how I feel..." Jonathan Safran Foer
"One of America's most challenging and adventurous writers." Guardian
"Like an acupuncturist, Lynne Tillman knows the precise points in which to sink her delicate probes. One of the biggest problems in composing fiction is understanding what to leave out; no one is more severe, more elegant, more shocking in her reticences than Tillman." Edmund White
Anything Ive read by Tillman Ive devoured.” Anne K. Yoder, The Millions
"If I needed to name a book that is maybe the most overlooked important piece of fiction in not only the 00s, but in the last 50 years, [American Genius, A Comedy] might be the one. I could read this back to back to back for years." Blake Butler, HTML Giant
Review
"In Haunted Houses, Lynne Tillman chronicles the loneliness of childhood and incipient womanhood, the salvation of friendship, and the neurotic chain that binds perpetually needy daughters to their perpetually self-absorbed parents....Her style is spare and compelling, the effect of clinical authenticity." New York Times Book Review
Review
"Ms. Tillman's characters are rigorously drawn, with a scrupulous regard for the truth of their inner lives...this is one of the most interesting works of fiction in recent times....Fans of both truth and fancy should find nourishment here." LA Weekly
Review
"Lynne Tillman's protagonists are so lifelike, engaging and accessible, one could overlook, though hardly remain unaffected by, the quality of her prose, with its unique balancing of character interrogation and headlong entertainment. Haunted Houses achieves that hardest of things: a fresh involvement of overheard life with the charisma of intelligent fiction. Its pleasures pull their weight." Dennis Cooper
Review
"This complex and skillfully constructed novel has three separate storylines following the lives of three girls growing up in New York, maturing in a world of baffling freedoms and uncertainties....Childhood fears, passionate friendships, sexual explorations, and the uncomfortable interdependency of parents and children are depicted with intelligence, honesty, and dark humor. But if you are looking for comfort and consolation, you must look elsewhere: Tillman writes about life as it is, not as we might wish it to be." Sunday Times
Review
"Lynne Tillman's writing uncovers hidden truths, reveals the unnamable, and leads us into her personal world of pain, pleasure, laughter, fear and confusion, with a clarity of style that is both remarkable and exhilarating. Honest. Simple. Deep. Authentic. Daring....To read her is, in a sense, to become alive, because she lives so thoroughly in her work. Lynne Tillman is, quite simply, one of the best writers alive today." John Zorn
Review
"Lynne Tillman's haunted houses are Freudian ones the psyches of three girls, Emily, Jane, and Grace, each wrestling with the psychological 'ghosts' that shape them....Frequently shifting points of view are expressed in crisp sentences. Rather than forming a modernist stream of consciousness, however, the writing remains controlled." Times Literary Supplement
Review
"Lynne Tillman has always been a hero of mine not because I 'admire' her writing (although I do, very, very much), but because I feel it. Imagine driving alone at night. You turn on the radio and hear a song that seems to say it all. That's how I feel." Jonathan Safran Foer
Review
"One of America's most challenging and adventurous writers." Guardian
Review
"Like an acupuncturist, Lynne Tillman knows the precise points in which to sink her delicate probes. One of the biggest problems in composing fiction is understanding what to leave out; no one is more severe, more elegant, more shocking in her reticences than Tillman." Edmund White
Review
"Anything I've read by Tillman I've devoured." Anne K. Yoder, The Millions
Review
"Even working at Powell's, surrounded by books, every once in a while I'll be blown away by an incredible author that I've somehow just missed, despite years of glowing reviews and critical praise. If I'm lucky, that author will have multiple books, giving me a new vein of backlist to mine. Such was the case this week with Lynne Tillman and her 1987 novel Haunted Houses, which I would have continued to overlook if Richard Nash's new publishing company, Red Lemonade, hadn't recently republished it. I'd argue that you should take a good look at any book Red Lemonade puts out; their other title I've read, Vanessa Veselka's Zazen, wowed several of our staff and is currently one of our New Favorites." Jill Owens, Powells.com (Read the entire Powells.com review)
Synopsis
In uncompromising and fresh prose, Tillman tells the story of three very contemporary girls. Grace, Emily and Jane collide with friends, family, and culture under dark and comic circumstances, presented in uncanny, disturbing, and sometimes shocking terms. In Haunted Houses, Tillman writes of the past within the present, and of the inescapability of private memory and public history. A caustic account of how America makes and unmakes a young woman.