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by Caitlin Horrocks
From the author of the "enthralling" (New York Times Book Review) and "beautiful" (Washington Post) debut novel The Vexations comes an exciting new story collection that moves boldly between the real and the surreal.
Following her "marvelous" (Wall Street Journal) first novel, Caitlin Horrocks returns with a much-anticipated collection of short stories. In her signature, genre-defying style, she explodes our notions of what a story can do and where it can take us.
Life Among the Terranauts demonstrates all the inventiveness that won admirers for Horrocks's first collection. In "The Sleep," reprinted in Best American Short Stories, residents of a town in the frigid Midwest decide to hibernate through the bitter winters. In the title story, half a dozen people move into an experimental biodome for a shot at a million dollars, if they can survive two years. And in "Sun City," published in the New Yorker, a young woman meets her grandmother's roommate in the wake of her death and attempts to solve the mystery of whether the two women were lovers.
As the Boston Globe noted of her first collection, Horrocks is a master of "wild yet delicately handled satire," a "sprightly heartbreak" in which she is able to "mingle a note of tenderness in the desolation." With its startling range—from Norwegian trolls to Peruvian tour guides—Life Among the Terranauts once again dazzles readers, cementing Horrocks's reputation as one of the premier young writers of our time.
"Vigorous and supremely crafted...Horrocks's linguistic finesse and narrative range is impressive, and she brings incisive humor, pathos, and wit to her characters and their predicaments. The result is an immersive and engaging work that astutely captures the complexities of the human condition." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Horrocks' stories feel classic and melancholy, like a concerto in a minor key. While the writing may feel overly polished to those who like their fiction a bit wilder, the characters' flawed decisions add a bit of welcome roughness. Elegant glimpses into the lives of lonely people." - Kirkus Reviews
"Perfect for fans of George Saunders and Karen Russell…This dazzling collection of short stories will be pinging around the minds of readers long after the back cover is closed…Horrocks nails the short format by building easy-to-enter and hard-to-forget worlds...Each story is as engrossing as if it were a full-length novel, and just as sad to leave." - Booklist
"These stories—inventive, outrageous, exquisite—are my kind of fun. How are we supposed to live in this world? Life Among the Terranauts will help show us the way. I'm in love with the brilliant stories in this book." - Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of the national bestseller Once Upon a River
"Holy smokes! Caitlin Horrocks has written a perfect story collection of astronomical range. It's been a very long time since I've come across stories as brilliant, bold, odd, and incandescent as these." - Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Gold Fame Citrus
"In her third book—and with her literary powers only heightened—Horrocks has crafted an accomplished, beautiful collection of stories with a streak of the surreal. Life Among the Terranauts is wise, worldly, and inventive, moving across both time and continents. Horrocks has proven herself a master of the story form." - Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of Birds of a Lesser Paradise
This information about Life Among the Terranauts was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Caitlin Horrocks is the author of the story collection This Is Not Your City and the novel The Vexations, a Wall Street Journal Top Ten Book of the Year. She is a recipient of the O. Henry Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the Plimpton Prize. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the Paris Review, Tin House, and One Story, among other magazines, and has been reprinted in The Best American Short Stories. She lives with her family in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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