St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
  • Published: 15 August 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099507321
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $50.00

St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

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These ten extraordinary stories introduce a blazingly original voice, a stunning debut, a breathtaking discovery.

Longlisted for the Guardian first book award.

Charting loss, love, and the difficult art of growing up, these stories unfurl with wicked humour and insight. Two young boys make midnight trips to a boat graveyard in search of their dead sister, who set sail in the exoskeleton of a giant crab; a boy whose dreams foretell implacable tragedies is sent to 'Sleepaway Camp for Disordered Dreamers' (Cabin 1, Narcoleptics; Cabin 2, Insomniacs; Cabin 3, Somnambulists. . . ); a Minotaur leads his family on the trail out West, and finally, in the collection's poignant and hilarious title story, fifteen girls raised by wolves are painstakingly re-civilised by nuns.
  • Published: 15 August 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099507321
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $50.00
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About the author

Karen Russell

Karen Russell, a native of Miami, has been featured in the New Yorker's debut fiction issue, was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists in 2007, and was named one of New Yorker magazine's 20 Under 40. Her first collection of short stories, St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, was longlisted for the Guardian first book award. Her novel, Swamplandia!, was longlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize and shortlisted for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize.

Altogether Karen has now won 2 National Magazine awards and had 4 of her stories published in Best American Short Stories. Both Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove have been US bestsellers. And in 2013 Karen won a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

portrait photo of Karen Russell

Also by Karen Russell

Swamplandia!
Sleep Donation
Orange World
Vampires in the Lemon Grove
See all

Praise for St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

Outrageously imaginative and profoundly funny... surreal... impressive in many ways... Her imagination is agile, like the body of a champion gymnast, and she lets it dance... Does anyone over here write like this, with such freedom, such vivacity? A wild and brilliant first book

Irish Times

These 10 inventive stories, set mostly in the Florida Everglades, mix satire and sophisticated whimsy

New York Times

Russell proves herself the heir to Angela Carter in this simply dazzling collection of short stories. With macabre humour, dark fantasy and a haunting tone this is unforgettable stuff - even just titles such as 'Lady Yeti And The Palace Of Artificial Snows' are staggering.

Scotland on Sunday

Ten hugely entertaining short stories - including the hilarious titular tale of 15 lupine adolescents - from hot young US writer Russell

Financial Times

Arcane, magical tales of adolescent transformation... reminiscent of Angela Carter but wonderfully confident and refreshing in its own right

Guardian

Delights in the quirky...truly magical and creepy settings

Daily Mail

An exuberant collection; each story bursts forth from the pages with a cacophony of imagery that sweeps up the reader

The Times

Karen Russell has produced an engaging debut. Her ability to integrate mythology and the supernatural with the very contemporary...is reminiscent of Angela Carter, but unlike Carter's many imitators, Russell never descends into whimsy... In St Lucy's, humans, ghosts and animals are utterly real; and Russell sells the genuine article, a seemingly effortless writer

Alisa Cox, Mslexia

Her debut collection paints a refreshingly surreal vision of small-town life... Selected by Granta as one of America's best young novelists, Russell is an intuitive writer with a gift for arresting prose

Independent

Dazzling and moving

Independent on Sunday