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Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories

by Karen Russell (Goodreads Author)

3.67 of 5 stars 3.67 · rating details · 2,571 ratings · 553 reviews

From the author of the New York Times best seller Swamplandia!—a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize—a magical new collection of stories that showcases Karen Russell’s gifts at their inimitable best.

A dejected teenager discovers that the universe is communicating with him through talismanic objects left behind in a seagull’s nest. A community of girls held captive in a silk f...more

Hardcover, 243 pages

Published February 12th 2013 by Knopf (first published February 1st 2013)

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Nov 03, 2012 karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: october-is-spooky, hey-shorty

this collection only has eight stories in it compared to the ten in her last collection, so on one hand, i feel cross because i always want more from her, but on the other hand, the stories i liked, i liked a lot. but i'm greedy, and sometimes 8 is not enough.

but they are good, and i liked each story more than the one preceding it. in fact, the only one i wasn't crazy about was the second story,reeling for the empire, which felt like the longest story, but might not have been.

greg snatched this...more

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May 06, 2013 LeeAnn Heringer rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century, digital-library, read-in-2013, short-stories

Over hyped, over rated, did not live up to my expectations.

Every one of the 8 very short stories in this collection has a wonderful premise -- vampires who thirst for something other than blood, team krill at the ice floe of Antarctica, women trapped in a Japanese factory, flocks of seagulls stealing the parts of our future we most need, dead presidents as stabled horses, etc. And the language itself is poetic and beautiful and sometimes says the most startling things, but...

The author can't tel...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Jenny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, own, short-stories, read2013

I had been looking forward to this book coming out, because I loved Karen Russell's first book of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. These stories did not disappoint! I was curious to see if there would be more set in Florida, but these span from Italy to New Jersey to the plains to Antarctica. And just as I would have expected, the stories are at times startling, amusing, and sad. I will just say a few words about each, but this is a must-read.

Vampires in the Lemon Grove...more

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Mar 27, 2013 Aaron Arnold rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, read-in-2013

I haven't read Swamplandia!, her widely acclaimed novel, but I only liked a few of these short stories so I might not search it out, even if it was a Pulitzer finalist. I don't really have a problem with her writing technique per se - she can come up with good ways to describe things and there aren't any dumb sentences in here or anything - it's just that a lot of these stories don't end up being very interesting or compelling, with a few exceptions. All of these stories involve somewhat fantast...more I haven't read Swamplandia!, her widely acclaimed novel, but I only liked a few of these short stories so I might not search it out, even if it was a Pulitzer finalist. I don't really have a problem with her writing technique per se - she can come up with good ways to describe things and there aren't any dumb sentences in here or anything - it's just that a lot of these stories don't end up being very interesting or compelling, with a few exceptions. All of these stories involve somewhat fantastical elements, which is fine, but the less-interesting ones read like weird workshop exercises, like "now write a story where horses are Presidents".

- Vampires in the Lemon Grove. A long-married vampire couple has been living in Italy and eating lemons to ameliorate their bloodlust, but eventually the wife wants to move on from their idyll and the husband struggles to cope. I thought this story was pretty bland, like you finish reading and all you can remember is "yeah, that certainly was about vampires or old people or something".
- Reeling For the Empire. Japanese girls are drugged with a kind of tea that turns them into human silkworms, locked up in a sort of Lowell mill/prison, and forced to spin silk for export until they learn how to take the next step in their transformation. Genuinely disturbing, and an excellent example of fantasy horror done well, especially in how emotionally deadened the protagonist was.
- The Seagull Army Descends On Strong Beach, 1979. A young teenager in a white trash family struggles to escape his life and get with a girl who's been sort of seeing his brother, crossed with a sci-fi version of Hitchcock's The Birds. I liked the emotional drama in the protagonist's life - my soft spot for stories about uncool high schoolers struggling with love and loserdom, I guess - but the "magical" part with the birds possibly messing with humanity by stealing their stuff felt like an afterthought, poorly developed and integrated with the main plot.
- Proving Up. The youngest son of a family struggling to settle on the Great Plains is sent on horseback to show a real glass window to the government inspector, which is the final proof needed to receive their title to the land under the Homestead Act; however, the window the father acquired under shady circumstances is attractive to other figures who live along the son's path to the inspector. The son's dreams are maybe a bit too much foreshadowing, but I liked the atmosphere of the story, and he labors under a fairly convincing cloud of dread. I also learned that the glass window requirement was a real thing, which seems really cruel to pioneer families.
- The Barn at the End of Our Term. Rutherford B. Hayes, along with several other former Presidents, are reincarnated as horses, and try to figure out if they're in Heaven or some sort of bizarre purgatory while they attempt to escape. I confess that the point of this story escaped me; it reminded me a bit of David Foster Wallace's stupid short story about Lyndon B. Johnson in that both stories are sort of mocking the retrospective gravitas that history awards to Presidents, but I liked Russell's more since it was so openly absurd. The ending was almost existentialist, like a Sartre of the stables.
- Dougbert Shackleton's Rules For Antarctic Tailgating. A veteran tailgater provides tips for cheering on Antarctic krill in the battle of life against their archrivals the whales. Short and goofy, it's hard to say much about this. The idea of people cheering on different species in their Darwinian struggle is worth at least a small grin.
- The New Veterans. A single Wisconsin masseuse gives massages to a returning Iraq War veteran with a strange tattoo inspired by a fatal IED incident, who responds strangely to her treatment. The masseuse is decently characterized, and I thought her struggle with the soldier's memories was unique and well-done. Maybe this story could have been expanded, but it ends well.
- The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis. The leader of a gang of high school delinquents torments a boy who just moved into town and who is somehow connected to an oddly compelling scarecrow. My main issue with this story is that the narrator is not believable at all - that type of bully character would never think of describing themselves as having "pontoon loads" of relatives, or some of the other metaphors he comes up with. Also his reaction to the mysterious happenings with the scarecrow aren't very plausible either. Or the way the rest of his gang interacts with him. And his struggles with his last name are dumb. Come to think of it I didn't like anything about this one.(less)

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Feb 27, 2013 Laurel Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: from-the-library, hpl, short-stories

Karen Russell is in heat check mode.

After the Pulitzer committee decided in 2011 that no great novels made the cut for the award (itself a pathetic heat check, the flailing of an organization disguised as stunting), Russell went ahead and planted her talent somewhere in Florida and here in this collection.

Do you think the Pulitzer committee just thought, "Naw, that Swamplandia! is set in America's wang. I love a drive-thru pharmacy with a prescribing NP hanging out the window like it's a Benze...more

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May 18, 2013 Karen Ashmore rated it 2 of 5 stars

When I started reading Chapter 2, I was confused because it had nothing to do with the characters in Chapter 1. I could not figure that out until I realized this was not a novel, it is a collection of short stories! Duh. I loved the first story, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, but could not get into any of the other stories. On to the next book.

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May 16, 2013 Tuesday rated it 3 of 5 stars

I haven't read anything by this author except for this book. So far I can say the only story that has really kept my attention is reeling that had to be the most intriguing one so far. The rest are very confusing just when I'm starting to get into the story it ends I feel like the beginning if the stories are long and drawn out yet don't give me anything to really want to read. Not really a fan but I'm willing to try new books. A lot of the stories I didn't like but near the end it got a little...more

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Mar 09, 2013 Naberius rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of the things I love most about collections of short stories is that if I find one that I don't like so much, there's always at least a few others that I really do like -- and that's what happened with this book, as well.

I haven't read anything else by Karen Russell, although I was familiar with Swamplandia. However, I had read reviews of this book, so when our library's copy came in and I saw it on the shelf, I grabbed it. While I didn't love all of the stories, there were a few that I real...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Rick rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked Karen Russell's short story collection Vampires in the Lemon Grove more then I thought I would. Having read and enjoyed her fine novel Swamplandia I went to a reading at Symphony Space NYC this winter(now) featuring actors reading from Her work and Junot Diaz. The Russell story as read Reeling for the Empire (here) did not capture me. Perhaps it was the performance/material vis a vis John Leguizamo killing the great Diaz story "This is How You Lose Her" (see an old goodreads rave) but I...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Carla rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club

The quality of story was erratic, but I think the positive outweighed the negative. I feel like, for the most part, the review listed at Book Riot echos my feelings: several of the stories were just too damn long [looking at you, "The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach, 1979"], while some others ["Proving Up"] could have been lengthened into a novella.

Overall, I think Russell is a little too prone to simile for my taste, and several of the stories lacked a clear beginning/middle/end. I liked...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Alec rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: marketstar-book-club

This book is a compilation of short stories, none of which are really resolved to any level of closure (unless you count the slaughter of 80,000,000 krill as closure). The author has excellent command of language and creates worlds of great imagery. She is apparently twisted as well, given the stories. I'm glad that I didn't have to read an entire full-length novel of any of the stories so the format was perfect.

I would never had read this book of my own accord, but I'm glad that I did as part o...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Susan Tunis rated it 5 of 5 stars

Russell’s sophomore collection proves provocative and disquieting

I was introduced to Ms. Russell’s work through her Pulitzer Prize finalist debut novel, Swamplandia! I was immediately seduced by her imaginative use of language, as well as the quirky tale and endearing central character. I came to Vampires in the Lemon Grove, her second story collection, expecting more of the same except, you know, shorter. I don’t know that my expectations were fully met.

Ms. Russell writes beautifully—so no com...more Russell’s sophomore collection proves provocative and disquieting

I was introduced to Ms. Russell’s work through her Pulitzer Prize finalist debut novel, Swamplandia! I was immediately seduced by her imaginative use of language, as well as the quirky tale and endearing central character. I came to Vampires in the Lemon Grove, her second story collection, expecting more of the same except, you know, shorter. I don’t know that my expectations were fully met.

Ms. Russell writes beautifully—so no complaints there. She has an idiosyncratic and evocative style, and if you’ll indulge me, here are a few quotes:

• “Marcy McFadden was gone. But Beverly could read the Braille of her mother’s curved spine—it was composed in the unspeakable, skeletal language that she had learned at school.”
• “Beverly once read a science magazine article about bioluminescence, the natural glow emitted by organisms like fireflies and jellyfish, but she knows the dead also give off a strange illumination, a phosphor that can permanently damage the eyes of the living. Necroluminescence—the light of the vanished. A hindsight produced by the departed’s body. Your failings backlit by the death of your loved ones.”
• “It was a terribly embarrassing voice—a weak white grasshopper species that we would have tried to kill, had it belonged to a fellow child.”

Hers is a rare and extraordinary gift. And, yes, she is still telling quirky tales, some of them extremely so. The title story is exactly as advertised. It’s about an elderly vampire living in an Italian lemon grove. Russell has fun exploring the “reality” of pop culture vampire tropes. Even the vampires buy into them, apparently. That first tale is emblematic of the stories in the collection—almost all of them involve some fantastic element or other. And then there’s this: Ms. Russell’s premises can suggest a certain lightness or even humor, but her tales often turn dark.

It was the collection’s second story, “Reeling for the Empire,” that—for lack of a better description—completely freaked me out. I’m not going to describe it at all; it’s better for you to just discover it exactly as the author has presented it. What I will say is that it’s deeply, deeply weird and nightmarish. But also kind of brilliant and… and… What kind of sick mind thinks up this stuff? That is where I began to feel disquieted and also provoked. Ms. Russell’s stories provoked strong reactions from me. I’m not sure they were entirely positive reactions, but I could always appreciate the talent, intelligence, and imagination that Ms. Russell displayed.

I don’t feel like it would be productive to write up summaries of the eight stories that make up this collection. Ultimately, a plot synopsis wouldn’t be very illustrative. It was interesting for me to read this collection virtually back-to-back with George Saunders’ much-vaunted collection, Tenth of December. There were interesting aspects to their work to compare and contrast, which was not surprising as Mr. Saunders is often listed as influencing Ms. Russell. Speaking broadly, reading him was a more joyful experience. But for better or worse, it’s her tales that will probably have the greater staying power. Ms. Russell’s stories disturbed me at the same time as they entertained me. I had confusing emotional responses to her work. I suspect that she would be very pleased to have aroused such reactions.(less)

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Mar 31, 2013 Calley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

I love Karen Russell's work. Love it. Which makes it hard to say that this collection did not entirely win me over. In fact, I really only liked half of the stories, but those that I did like, I adored. The eponymous "Vampires in the Lemon Grove," "Reeling for the Empire," and "The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis" were the standouts of this collection for me, with the delightful "Dougbert Shackleton's Rules for Antarctic Tailgating" providing some solid chuckles.

What I love about Russell is the def...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Sasha rated it 4 of 5 stars

most of these stories are fucking fantastic. i am not done with the last one, but i had a lot of trouble with the teenage boy voice she was using, and i thought the shackleton tailgating bit was funny but that it could have used more than just easy jokes, and its intimations at a deeper life and sadness could have been solved by just reading how barthelme does it, or just being the sort of person who makes desperate and highly involved jokes to stave off their own unavoidable depression, which a...more

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Mar 14, 2013 Tim Callicutt rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013-books

Truthfully, I felt a bit of trepidation in picking up Vampires. I read Russell’s Swamplandia! last semester and was disappointed. Although I could appreciate her creativity, I just did not find myself drawn towards the book. This is okay, of course, as a book’s worth ultimately depends on what you get out of it rather than the journey itself, but it was a rough journey with very little payback for me. Then again I’m not much of a critic, I suppose. The holiest of holy – Amazon reviewers – seemed...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Matt Stalbaum rated it 4 of 5 stars

For newcomers to Karen Russell's unique stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove is a must-read, full of thrilling and heartfelt tales. For fans of Russell's first collection of stories, beware - she's grown much more chilling and unforgiving this time around.

If this new collection of stories is less enjoyable than Russell's first, it's only because her sensibilities have grown beyond the numerous young victims of her earlier works to encompass aging, desire, imprisonment, ambition, and, perhaps mos...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Gerry O'Malley rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of short story fiction and students of creative writing

If I had to summarize this collection of short stories in a word it would be "frustrating". Karen Russell is clearly a very gifted writer and several of these short stories approach masterful, but here is the problem - I don't think she knows how to finish a story. Each one of these little gems is unique and unlike any other story in the book - indeed, the style of the story varies wildly and wonderfully from story to story. Each story begins as a wonderfully weird little idea gem and Russell wr...more If I had to summarize this collection of short stories in a word it would be "frustrating". Karen Russell is clearly a very gifted writer and several of these short stories approach masterful, but here is the problem - I don't think she knows how to finish a story. Each one of these little gems is unique and unlike any other story in the book - indeed, the style of the story varies wildly and wonderfully from story to story. Each story begins as a wonderfully weird little idea gem and Russell wraps that idea in layer upon layer of delicious prose, fleshing out the idea and creating fantastic and fascinating little worlds. With only one exception (the awful failed experiment of DOUGBERT SHACKLETON'S RULES FOR ANTARCTIC TAILGATING) the reader has a great time exploring each of the little worlds that Russell creates until the very end, when too often...nothing happens. Short stories (well, ANY story actually), is supposed to have a beginning, middle and end; the end should be some resolution to the conflict or antagonism that was created in the first two sections. Russell does a great job of carrying the ball downfield but then stops short of the goal line. As an example, my favorite story in the collection is PROVING UP, a young boy's amazing, journey through the haunted frontier of early 19th century American settlers that races along intermittently thrilling and terrifying until what would seem to be the logical conclusion is left up to the reader's imagination to decide what happened to the protagonist. After reading the last page three or four times I wanted to throw the book across the room - Russell doesn't need to make the endings of stories intentionally vague - it comes across as quasi-intellectual gamesmanship. The author draws from a deep and expressive and entertaining well of creativity to pull the reader along and set them up for a huge emotional payoff and then..."No - you are going to have to figure this out for yourselves". PROVING UP was, for me, the worst offender in terms of lack of conclusion, however THE SEAGULL ARMY DESCENDS ON STRONG BEACH, 1979 was, after a great emotional investment in the wonderfully drawn characters, another tremendous disappointment, as was the title story, VAMPIRES IN THE LEMON GROVE, which also suffered from being terminally precious and somewhat cloying. REELING FOR THE EMPIRE was probably the most bizarre and successful story in the collection - young girls are tricked into a kind of slave labor in feudal era Japan by signing on to spin silk, but in actuality, are transformed into human silkworms. Although the conclusion was not entirely satisfying, it seemed to fit the otherworldly atmosphere of the story, as did THE BARN AT THE END OF OUR TERM, in which dead US Presidents are reincarnated as horses in a stable and converse and interact as equine versions of themselves - bizarre and trippy and not altogether unsatisfactory, although disappointing. In the two most conventional stories in the collection, THE NEW VETERANS and THE GRAVELESS DOLL OF ERIC MUTIS, Russell writes fully developed characters that are identifiable and relatable and has them evolve and act logically, but again, the conclusions to these stories are frustratingly obscure and the reader is left with a sense of "Yeah - but what did any of it MEAN?". I suppose that several of these stories might make for interesting book club discussions, but I think most readers will describe the same frustrations as I do. Russell is a brilliant writer, but these stories come across as intentionally obtuse, as if Russell realizes that the reader will be forced to create their own conclusions and/or debate the meaning of hers. Readers of short fiction will quickly grow weary of such intellectual hide-and-seek. (less)

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Mar 11, 2013 Cynthia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2013

Russell Proves Up

“The Lemon Grove” is an inventive group of short stories. There are some real gems in this collection. It is one of those books that defy genre categorization. Russell’s style is very literary though you certainly don’t have your feet planted in the everyday world. There are elements of fantasy and science fiction and horror. Also, she has a knack for putting sentences and thoughts together in an individual way. Here are a few examples: “{She} read books and moved through the wo...more Russell Proves Up

“The Lemon Grove” is an inventive group of short stories. There are some real gems in this collection. It is one of those books that defy genre categorization. Russell’s style is very literary though you certainly don’t have your feet planted in the everyday world. There are elements of fantasy and science fiction and horror. Also, she has a knack for putting sentences and thoughts together in an individual way. Here are a few examples: “{She} read books and moved through the world as if she were afraid her footsteps might wake it.” “Outside of my mind I can barely see.” “He’s a rumor…he’s smoke…” These are a few examples. At a certain point I put my pencil down and just read.

There’s a winged motif running through most of these stories if, at times, only on the periphery…bats, seagulls, moths even angels. These multiple references to flying tie in with the fanciful nature of Russell’s writing. There’s also sadness. She confronts loss, unrequited love, a warrior’s battle scars, and unknown unknowable evil, evil that’s made worse for being undefined, etc. Though all these stories have merit I found them uneven. ‘Proving Up’ was positively creepy as was ‘The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis’ and ‘Reeling for the Empire’ read like an allegory. All of them were beyond normal happenings but there was something fundamentally true and human in them. The supernatural aspects in Russell’s writing reminded of Shirley Jackson. Russell’s tone often had William Trevor’s emotional intensity where evil seems to hover just outside reality. The best stories in this collection were immensely satisfying which made those that were less so seem more starkly lacking though probably if I’d encountered them elsewhere I wouldn’t have felt this so strongly. This book is an adventure.

This review is based on an Advanced Reading Copy supplied by the publisher.
(Disclaimer added as required by the FTC.)
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Feb 27, 2013 Liam O'brien rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Bookish women and men alike, and my parents

Karen Russell: still best taken in short doses. If you read Swamplandia! amidst the tide of hype, whether it's from the Pulitzer and 20-under-40 and just generally "this is a young skilled writer", and thought "this is good but I can only take so many awe-inspiring prose runs and incredible similes, plus the ending was dogshit", like I did, then this is the book for you. Russell kills it, truly. She's got the relentless line-by-line dazzle of an MFA student who actually is worth the tuition but...more Karen Russell: still best taken in short doses. If you read Swamplandia! amidst the tide of hype, whether it's from the Pulitzer and 20-under-40 and just generally "this is a young skilled writer", and thought "this is good but I can only take so many awe-inspiring prose runs and incredible similes, plus the ending was dogshit", like I did, then this is the book for you. Russell kills it, truly. She's got the relentless line-by-line dazzle of an MFA student who actually is worth the tuition but beyond that she reaches toward something more profound about her characters and situations that in a lesser writer's grasp would be pale gimmicks. Check "Proving Up", which goes William Gass with a stark threatening 19th-century prairie setting and buttons it up with a truly unsettling ending, or the last story, "The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis", about cruel kids and the fucked-up shit they realize all too late they'll have to remember doing. This motherfucker has SKILL. She's LOUSY with it. All that grant money and adulation has the advantage of letting her point this industrial-strength detail sponge and description-conveyer of a brain she's got without the interruption of what most of us are doing in our 20's, i.e. working at jobs we don't love for money that's never quite enough. I wish her the best; the usual jealousy I feel toward similar authors of my age group is lessened quite a bit by this collection. Like I said, SWAMPLANDIA was a real thrill, like getting my brain stoned and making it take a long hot shower, with sensual curls of phrase and a bottomless tank of 'em at that, and the calm assured trust that this, this author, she will control and direct you toward something that makes this book earn its place on your shelf and in your time. And, like I said, it let me the FUCK down at the ending. But this is her 3rd book. And it's fucking good. And I think she's getting better. And as long as she doesn't end up advancing up her own ass like so many enthusiastically feted writers, I'll read anything she makes, and then go jogging so the jealousy can disperse. #fuckyeahKarenRussell

Though to be fair, she might not want to write so much in first person 'cause an 11-yr-old Nebraskan boy in the 19th century and a Japanese half-silkworm from some horrifying alternate 20th century and an 12-year-old Jersey boy all sounding the same, with a zillion amazing images and metaphors banging around in each sentence? Hard to keep my belief dangling. Thankfully, like I said, best in short doses.(less)

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Feb 21, 2013 Zach rated it 5 of 5 stars

This collection sees Karen Russell shift the balance between concept and narrative. While she has always handled both deftly, she made a name for herself by creating fantastical and fabulist scenarios. Those still remain, but the unreal elements of her stories seem subtler, serving to nudge the reader just outside of the possible, to let them see her deeply human narratives from a uniquely revealing angle. That’s because Russell is all about what's human, even if the human is sometimes a scarecr...more This collection sees Karen Russell shift the balance between concept and narrative. While she has always handled both deftly, she made a name for herself by creating fantastical and fabulist scenarios. Those still remain, but the unreal elements of her stories seem subtler, serving to nudge the reader just outside of the possible, to let them see her deeply human narratives from a uniquely revealing angle. That’s because Russell is all about what's human, even if the human is sometimes a scarecrow or a silkworm/woman or a vampire.

Despite being a writer of supreme empathy, Russell shows no hesitation in throwing her characters to the wolves. As much as she loves her characters, she loves the story more, and if something awful has to happen for the sake of the story then you can be sure it will. She’s a master of the looming doom, a feeling of foreboding lurking over the horizon. The story "Proving Up," for example, is like reading a slightly surreal Flannery O'Connor.

The prose of each story, even if the styles vary, is always controlled, like each letter was set in place with tweezers: "That sun ate lakes, rising out of dead volcanoes at dawn, triple the size of a harvest moon and skull-white, a grass-scorcher." Russell has a way of crafting sentences that feel perfect without letting the reader fall into a preconceived comfort. She excels at creating new linguistic experiences, which require an investment of attention and intellect.

The most important part of this collection and all of Russell's writing is, for me, the childlike glee with which she explores her subjects. Even in stories where "glee" seems like the absolute wrong word to describe them, it's hard not to feel her own wonder at the weirdness of her subjects. With all the elements that I might quantify, it's this verve, elan, whatever you want to call it that makes Vampires in the Lemon Grove transcend literary expectations. These are stories that you'll remember long after most others are forgotten.
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Feb 20, 2013 Lit Folio rated it 3 of 5 stars

There is so much hype created around this new creative writer darling, I don't know where to begin in de-cluttering it all. One thing I will say, is if you want a brilliant marriage of creativity, delicious humor and a riveting story, please read the lesser known CLAIRE ANGE by a writer not many know of, but should: M.A. Kirkwood. (I also loved the first from this author, SIMON LAZARUS)

Okay, with that said, Ms. Russell has a delightful imagination. And she writes with spunk and verve--why I give...more

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Feb 15, 2013 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, fiction, short-story-collection

A Brilliant Short Story Collection from Karen Russell

With “Vampires in the Lemon Grove”, Karen Russell demonstrates why she is among our finest young American writers of contemporary fiction, elegantly transcending and melding genres in what is truly a most captivating short story collection. Drawing upon fantasy and horror, Russell merges them effortlessly into mainstream literary fiction, conjuring tales as memorable as any published recently by the likes of Dan Chaon and Charles Yu. Having he...more A Brilliant Short Story Collection from Karen Russell

With “Vampires in the Lemon Grove”, Karen Russell demonstrates why she is among our finest young American writers of contemporary fiction, elegantly transcending and melding genres in what is truly a most captivating short story collection. Drawing upon fantasy and horror, Russell merges them effortlessly into mainstream literary fiction, conjuring tales as memorable as any published recently by the likes of Dan Chaon and Charles Yu. Having heard her read from her memorable debut novel “Swamplandia” at the popular – and critically acclaimed – Franklin Park Reading series in Brooklyn, NY, I eagerly anticipated this book, her second short story collection after “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, and I am far from disappointed. Set in Italy, the opening tale, “Vampires in the Lemon Grove”, introduces us to a vampire couple confronting a crisis in their century-old marriage when one develops a fear of flying. “Reeling for the Empire” imagines a late 19th Century Japan in which the heroine becomes virtually enslaved as someone capable of generating and spooling out reels of exceptionally high quality silkworm silk. “Pushing Up” and “The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis” unearth the dark side of adolescence, as two literary gems replete in horror worthy of comparison with the likes of Clive Barker, Dan Chaon, Neil Gaiman and China Mieville. “Dougbert Shackleton’s Rules for Antarctic Tailgating” is Russell’s clever reimagining of Antarctic ecological predator-prey relationships as some vast marine “sporting event”, and may remind some of Charles Yu’s terse, often witty, prose in his recent short story collection “Sorry Please Thank You”. Russell’s elegant prose, vivid imagination, and affinity for psychological horror are most evident in “The New Veterans”, introducing us to a massage therapist who discovers she has the power to heal a psychologically traumatized Iraqi war veteran by touching and transforming the tattooed images on his body. “Vampires in the Lemon Grove” is destined to be remembered as yet another important literary landmark in Russell’s oeuvre, as well as among the best short story collections published this year.

(Reposted from my Amazon review.)(less)

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Feb 12, 2013 Everyday eBook rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Everyday by: Amanda Bullock

Karen Russell leaves the Florida swamp behind in her new collection of short stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, traveling to Italy, Wisconsin, and possibly purgatory. The settings are more geographically exotic, but Russell’s dark humor and ability to infuse the everyday with the fantastic carry over from her wonderful debut collection, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and her Pulitzer–nominated novel, Swamplandia!

The eight stories in Vampires reveal the human in the monstrous, the...more Karen Russell leaves the Florida swamp behind in her new collection of short stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, traveling to Italy, Wisconsin, and possibly purgatory. The settings are more geographically exotic, but Russell’s dark humor and ability to infuse the everyday with the fantastic carry over from her wonderful debut collection, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and her Pulitzer–nominated novel, Swamplandia!

The eight stories in Vampires reveal the human in the monstrous, the animal in the man. In the title story, the power of mythology and folk stories influences the belief and action of mortal and monster alike, in which an aging vampire fights both a fear of flying and the lost thrill of being feared. Throughout the collection, twice humans become animals (three times if you count the eponymous vampires turning into bats). In “Reeling for the Empire,” Japanese girls are transformed into giant silkworms housed in a squalid factory where a machine pulls the precious thread from their furry bodies. In “The Barn at the End of Our Term” (which is quite possibly the weirdest story I have ever read), eleven presidents of the United States awake in the bodies of horses and find themselves at the same barn in a strange purgatory. The protagonist, Rutherford B. Hayes, becomes tragically convinced that a blind sheep is his reincarnated wife. Only Karen Russell could manage heartbreak in a story about president horses in purgatory.

The final two stories are the only ones that contain no central animal element; instead, they deal specifically with human-inflicted and -suffered pain. In “The New Veterans,” a massage therapist begins to take on the violent memories commemorated in a new patient’s strange, shifting tattoo of the day the IED blew in Iraq. In the final story, a group of Jersey boys are haunted by a scarecrow with the face of a disappeared classmate they once tormented. Characters find themselves taking on the pain or memory of someone suffering very un-fantastic, human pain – post-traumatic stress of war, and grade school bullying – and becoming sleepless and destroyed by the transference. Man has become the monster, the horrific is in our own minds, the result of our own actions.

The gothic twists and touches expose the humanity in these characters, vampire or teenage boy or reincarnated horse president. Vampires in the Lemon Grove contains the dark humor and fantastic elements Russell excels at, but is her boldest, most daring, mature book yet.

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Jan 30, 2013 Robert Beveridge rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: the world.

Shelves: amazon-vine, finished, owned-and-gave-away

Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove (Knopf, 2013)

Full disclosure: this book was provided to me free of charge by Amazon Vine.

I have a confession to make. I've been known to tear up at the odd film now and again, and certain songs can get me sniffling. Okay, both of those things are understatements. And even TV shows can do it. You know the episode of The Vicar of Dibley where [SPOILER ALERT] Hugo and Alice get hitched, so David is the guy ending up sitting there listening to Geraldine's...more Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove (Knopf, 2013)

Full disclosure: this book was provided to me free of charge by Amazon Vine.

I have a confession to make. I've been known to tear up at the odd film now and again, and certain songs can get me sniffling. Okay, both of those things are understatements. And even TV shows can do it. You know the episode of The Vicar of Dibley where [SPOILER ALERT] Hugo and Alice get hitched, so David is the guy ending up sitting there listening to Geraldine's joke? And at the very end of the sequence, he just looks at her and says, “Stay.”? [/SPOILER ALERT] I bawl like a baby. Every time. Hell, I'm tearing up now just thinking about it. But that sort of thing doesn't really ever happen to me with books. I can remember, in forty-odd years of reading, crying at maybe three or four books. I can now add “The New Veteran,” the penultimate story in Karen Russell's Vampires in the Lemon Grove, to the list.

I read Russell's debut story collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, not long after it came out and, to be frank, was blown away. I gave it five stars. I'm not as stingy with five-star book reviews as I am with five-star movie reviews; I've given less than forty five-star movie reviews in my lifetime (and revised at least two of those downward that I can recall off the top of my head), whereas since the start of my current spreadsheet (June 17, 2007) and factoring in some other books I remember from before that (e.g. St. Lucy's), I've got fifty-four five-star books sitting in front of me right now. But that's still a very small percentage of my overall reading; that's fifty-four five-star books out of 2,325 books read, give or take. (2.3%, for those who don't want to do the math.) Six authors have received more than one five-star review—Stephen King, Major Ragain, Catherynne Valente, Kathe Koja (the current runaway winner with four five-star reviews), Martin McDonagh, and now Karen Russell. Because Vampires in the Lemon Grove shows me something I'm not sure it ever occurred to me Karen Russell could do—she got better. If St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves is “ a miracle”, as Ben Marcus asserts on its cover (and I was in 2007, and still am in 2013, inclined to agree), then Vampires in the Lemon Grove is, what a choir of angels singing in exultation? Perhaps.

Those of you who have read St. Lucy's will feel right at home here. The magical-realism factor is a little more front-and-center here than it was there; stories like “The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis”, in which a scarecrow made in the image of a bullied boy becomes a symbol of atonement for one of his tormentors, or “The New Veteran”, in which a tattooed landscape of Iraq becomes the means by which a massage therapist changes the dreams of a Sergeant, couldn't work without the magical-realist mechanisms that drive them. (This does mean, of course, that readers who are allergic to Jorge Luis Borges, Alice Hoffman, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, etc., are going to be just as turned off by Karen Russell; tread lightly if magical realism is not your gig.) But, perhaps paradoxically, it also feels more ingrained into Russell's world than it did in St. Lucy's; the Wisconsin winter of “The New Veteran” seems like the most natural place in the world for magic to happen, and let's face it, if there's a more mundane part of the world than Wisconsin in the middle of winter, I can't think of it. These stories, like many of the others in the collection, are of a piece with St. Lucy's; the quality is solid through and through. And then there are the stories that are even better. “Proving Up”, even the ARC I'm working from (which like most ARCs is shot through with those bloody TKs; I don't even have an acknowledgements page so I know what magazines to thank for printing these wonderful nuggets of perfection) mentions that this story, the best in the collection and, arguably, the best short story I've encountered since Richard Christian Matheson's “Red” (which I first read in the late eighties), won the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 2012 when it was still titled “The Hox River Window”. It's a stunning piece, a period story centered around the quirky clause in the Homestead Act requiring that the prospective homeowner have, in the house that they have built, at least one glass window. (This clause is not fiction; the Homestead Act did indeed require homesteaders who headed west to claim their 160 acres to build shelter that had at least one glass window.) And it's better than anything in St. Lucy's, and I'm not quite sure, still, how Ms. Russell managed that.

There's a terrifying possibility here. In the horse racing world, when you get a really, really good three-year-old, one who could be a world-beater, you'll often hear trainers saying “we haven't seen the bottom of him/her yet.” The hoss hasn't really faced the competition to really dig deep and open up the lungs and uncoil the beast within. I made the assumption, incorrectly and somewhat ridiculously, that because St. Lucy's was such an incredible collection, that we'd seen the bottom of Karen Russell. Now I know I was wrong—and I strongly suspect that even with this collection, we haven't. Which makes me hope we won't be waiting another seven years for her next collection. Buy this for “Proving Up” and “The New Veteran”; the other six stories in this collection are the very delectable icing on their cake. If this doesn't top my best reads of the year list, I will be very surprised. *****(less)

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Mar 27, 2013 Stefani rated it 3 of 5 stars

I should stay that, first and foremost, I am a member of the Karen Russell fan club. I was lulled into a semi-narcotic, fluttery state of being with her first novel, her words sounding to me like the soft tinkling of cow bells in the Swiss Alps as you lay sprawled out in a bed of soft daisies starting at sky that is remarkably free of clouds. I've heard Russell described as "a writer's writer" and, for that, I love her.

But, my jets may have cooled for the moment.

Russell's knack for description...more

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Apr 25, 2013 Eviltwinjen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Russell's stories have grown richer and more satisfying since her first collection without losing their delightful weirdness. "The New Veterans", in which a massage therapist tries to lift the weight of memories from a soldier returned from Iraq, hit me like a punch to the gut. Other stories are more fanciful but equally powerful: former US presidents are reincarnated as horses; silk factory workers in Meiji Japan undergo a macabre transformation and take revenge on their recruiter (so good!). T...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Jill rated it 5 of 5 stars

Anyone who questions whether Karen Russell deserves all the accolades she is getting need only read Vampires in the Lemon Grove – eight imaginative and devastating stories that often took my breath away.

Of the eight, three stand out: the eponymous title story which features a married vampire couple who eschew all the old myths about what vampires SHOULD be like and satiate their thirst at a lemonade stand in Italy. “If you have been thirsty for a long time, if you have been suffering, then the a...more
Anyone who questions whether Karen Russell deserves all the accolades she is getting need only read Vampires in the Lemon Grove – eight imaginative and devastating stories that often took my breath away.

Of the eight, three stand out: the eponymous title story which features a married vampire couple who eschew all the old myths about what vampires SHOULD be like and satiate their thirst at a lemonade stand in Italy. “If you have been thirsty for a long time, if you have been suffering, then the absence of those two feelings – however brief – becomes a kind of heaven,” Karen Russell writes. In this – and in subsequent – stories, she manages to capture an essential and universal truth of humankind, wrapped in an unique and unusual package.

The best of the collection –in my opinion – is the spectacular second story, Reeling for the Empire. Ms. Russell imagines a 19th century Japan where girls are contracted as silkworm factory workers with one audacious twist: the girls themselves have transformed into silkworms, spinning thread from their own bellies. This highly descriptive story conjures up visions of today’s third world countries, where mass production trumps humanity and where humans eventually become cogs in the wheel. Ms. Russell writes, ‘We have no mirrors in Nowhere Mill, and I’ve spent the past few months convinced that we were still identifiable as girls women…it’s only now, watching the Agent’s reaction, that I realize what we’ve become in his absence. I see us as he must: white aces with sunken noses that look partially erased. Eyes inset-huge. Spines and elbows incubating lace for wings.”

Another standout is The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach, 1979. In this one, a teenager Nal, who plays second fiddle to his far more charismatic older brother, begins to believe that seagulls are communicating with him through talismanic articles, left in their nest. “If fate was just a tapestry with a shifting design – some fraying skein that the gulls were tearing right this second—than Nal didn’t see why he couldn’t also find a loose thread, and pull.”

Every one of these tales has lessons to offer. The New Veterans, slightly evocative of Jane Mendelssohn’s excellent American Music, focuses on a massage therapist who believes she can take away a tattooed war veteran’s pain by manipulating the image on his body. Proving Up is a haunting Gothic tale about an 11-year-old boy who discovers what occurs when the land owns you and the window becomes a mirror to your soul. The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis is a sort of horrific mortality tale about bullying. And so on.

I closed this book in awe of this young writer’s talent. It’s a tribute to the art of invention and the power of imagination.
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Feb 14, 2013 Grant Reynolds rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've been insanely excited for this book since I found out about it last year and it lived up to all my expectations. I am completely smitten with Karen Russell. She was adorable & incredibly sweet when I met her at the Boston Book Festival 2 summers ago and you combine that with her writing and I'm bluebirds circling my heads smitten. I'd actually already read the first 4 stories in this book and they held up fantastic rereading them in this collection. The collection is everything I've com...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Kurt rated it 4 of 5 stars

This brief collection of imaginative short stories packs some serious emotional punches. Each story has some kind of a supernatural element, but like the best imaginative fiction, the fantasy elements really serve to enhance the universal human emotions that really form the backbones to each tale. For example, the title story is superficially about a pair of vampires learning that they can slake their thirsts on lemons from a particular grove in an Italian monastery, but it's much more about the...more

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May 10, 2013 Julia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature-fiction, magical-realism

I have not read SWAMPLANDIA, Russell's best known book--but she hooked me here, especially with two of the stories. I have to say, not all of them caught me, but just on the basis of the two that enthralled me, I'm giving her 4 stars.

My favorite, without a doubt, is "Reeling for the Empire". It has all the dark magic of Haruki Murakami (KAFKA ON THE SHORE, HARD BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD). I'm not sure how to even talk of it without "spoilers" but I'll try--there's a dark tea whi...more

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About Karen Russell

Karen Russell graduated from Columbia University's MFA program in 2006. Her stories have been featured in The Best American Short Stories, Conjunctions, Granta, The New Yorker, Oxford American, and Zoetrope. Her first book of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, was published in September 2006. In November 2009, she was named a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" honoree. I...more

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Quotes from Vampires in the Lemon ...

“Many of the presidents have sworn themselves in to similarly foolish titles: Governor of Cow Pastures, Commanding General of Standing Chickens.” — 2 people liked it

“Rule One: Make friends with death

Tailgating in the Antarctic is no joke. We are trying to do nothing less ambitious than reverse the course of history. We want Team Krill to defeat Team Whale.
Look, if you want to tailgate in comfort, don't get on the boat. You can buy some quail eggs or snails or whatever you people eat and you can watch the Food Chain Games on your flat TV. Stay in Los Angeles. Hug your wife on your plush banquette. Cheer for the Antarctic minke whales, like every other asshole.
No, wait a second, here comes the real Rule One: if you are a supporter of Team Whale, you can go fuck yourself, my fine sir.
This list is for the fans of Team Krill.” — 2 people liked it

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