“Rutherford stared down into a drainage ditch and saw a horse’s broody face staring back at him. A gritty and sad tale that takes a sharp left into terrifying. This is the story of eleven-year-old Miles who is entrusted to take the window to the next farm over, and to bring it back in one piece before the Inspector comes. But first they have to share their precious window with a neighbor.
Only one last thing is required to gain the title: a real glass window set into the sod walls of their house. Acres of gold wheat wave at me from the future: March, April.”Ī hard-working family of farmers prepares for the Inspector, the only man who can grant them ownership of the land they have been carefully farming for five years. Tomorrow, I think, the thirsty sod will drink this storm up, guzzle the red runoff from my chin. It’s a heartbreaking tale of having your choices taken away, but becomes uplifting when the girls discover a way to escape their fate. There’s a twist to this story that you won’t believe-and I don’t want to spoil the surprise. In a future Japan, young girls are taken away from their homes to become kaiko-joko (silkworm workers) after a cataclysmic virus has decimated the silkworm population. Probably my favorite story of the bunch, this is also one of the strangest and most disturbing. You’ve got to love a story that uses a funicular in the plot! This idyllic life suits Clyde, but Magreb is unhappy and wants to leave the grove. The fruit calms the blood lust, but only for a while. Instead, they sink their fangs into the tangy pulp of the lemons that fall from the trees. Breath ripples through each of them, a tiny life in its translucent envelope.”Ī poignant love story between two vampires who live in an Italian lemon grove, this tale is narrated by the vampire Clyde, whose lover Magreb has convinced him that he doesn’t need blood to survive.
“I walk beneath a chandelier of furry bodies, heartbeats wrapped in wings the color of rose petals or corn silk. Here’s a sampling of some of my favorites:
Russell has a knack of taking innocuous objects-a scarecrow, a lemon, a window, a horse-and redefining them in odd and unexpected ways. This is how I feel about Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Karen Russell is a strange and exotic alien creature who has come to our planet to tell us her stories, and having heard them, our minds have expanded and accepted new ideas of just what a short story can be. In a word: strange, unearthly, jaw-dropping, and absurdĪ friend of mine once tried to describe Cirque du Soleil to me (before I had seen it for myself), and told me it was like a group of aliens had landed on Earth and decided to put on a circus. Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
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