Saturday, September 3, 2011

09-St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves-Karen Russell

I saw Karen Russell have a conversation with Wells Tower a few months ago at the NY Public Library. I went because I read the review of her new novel Swamplandia and was intrigued. I bought her collection of short stories, one of which was expanded for her acclaimed novel. Karen is 29. She is one of the New Yorker magazine’s 20 under 40 and she is trying really hard to be someone else: Kelly Link. I love the fantasy realism of Kelly Link. Karen Russell writes in a way that feigns originality, but falls way short, and hits too hard on the southern child narrator. The short stories are soft, easy reads. And I usually like that about short stories. This collection grabbed me twice, the title story and the one that became the novel. I do not recommend this collection. And I won’t be reading Swamplandia.

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