Awards
Winner of the 2004 PEN/Malamud Award
Synopses & Reviews
Here are five stories, set in Southeast Asia and on the Indian subcontinent -- each one bearing the weight and substance of a short novella -- narrated by young women who find themselves, often as expatriates, face to face with the compelling circumstances of adult love.Living in unfamiliar places, according to new and often frightening rules, these characters become vulnerable in unexpected ways -- and learn, as a result, to articulate the romantic attraction to landscapes and cultures that are strange to them.
Lucky Girls marks the arrival of a writer of exceptional talents, one whose generosity of spirit, clarity of intellect and emotion, and skill in storytelling set her among todays most gifted and exciting young voices.
Review
"[T]houghtful and entertaining....Freudenberger is more inventive and piquant when she probes characters' relationships to their adopted homelands..." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Freudenberger has an acute, steady eye for the physical world, and she creates a scene and its mood through exacting detail....Quietly and stealthily, her insight has a way of sneaking up on the reader." Elisa Ludwig, San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"[G]orgeously written...a remarkably poised collection....Young writers as ambitious and as good as Nell Freudenberger give us reason for hope." Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"The speakers are at best half explained, motivation remains a mystery, and you are left wanting a fuller explanation of events....The stories work best when read slowly...but at most we get a glimpse into a complicated scenario." Library Journal
Review
"[I]ntricately constructed, emotionally affecting tales....Instead of living up to the hype, Freudenberger gracefully transcends it, establishing herself as a talent to watch for years to come, rather than simply for her years." Elle
Review
"Every story in this remarkable collection reveals the emergence of a truly prodigious talent." Richard Ford, author of A Multitude of Sins
Review
"[A] haunting assemblage....There isn't a weak story in the bunch....Freudenberger succeeds nicely in creating sharply focused pieces in which each detail directs the reader along a clear path." Robin Vidimos, The Denver Post
Review
"Within the close confines of the short story form, Freudenberger's descriptive powers evoke precise visual settings that ache with loneliness....Lucky Girls doesn't have a single disappointment." Andrea Hoag, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Review
"The five stories are well-written, well-plotted, intelligent and surprising....Nell Freudenberger's book not only reminded me why I read, it also reminded me why I write." Curtis Sittenfeld, Salon.com (read the entire Salon.com review)
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.
Synopsis
First highlighted in the New Yorker fiction issue, Lucky Girls is a collection of five novella-like stories that take place mostly in Asia the debut of a new talent and a New York Times Notable Book.
Synopsis
Here are five stories, set in Southeast Asia and on the Indian subcontinent each one bearing the weight and substance of a short novella narrated by young women who find themselves, often as expatriates, face to face with the compelling circumstances of adult love.
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.
Nell Freudenberger on PowellsBooks.Blog
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