The Best American Short Stories 2024

Literature & Fiction

Groff, Lauren

Pitlor, Heidi

United States

Mariner Books

Monsters of Templeton

Genre Fiction

WINDMILL

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"Timeless and vast... The raw beauty of Ms. Groff's prose is one of the best things about Arcadia. But it is by no means this book's only kind of splendor."---Janet Maslin, The New York Times"Even the most incidental details vibrate with life Arcadia wends a harrowing path back to a fragile, lovely place you can believe in."---Ron Charles, The Washington PostIn  the fields of western New York State in the 1970s, a few dozen  idealists set out to live off the land, founding a commune centered on  the grounds of a decaying mansion called Arcadia House. Arcadia  follows this romantic utopian dream from its hopeful start through its  heyday. Arcadia's inhabitants include Handy, the charismatic leader; his  wife, Astrid, a midwife; Abe, a master carpenter; Hannah, a baker and  historian; and Abe and Hannah's only child, Bit. While Arcadia rises and  falls, Bit, too, ages and changes. He falls in love with Helle, Handy's  lovely, troubled daughter. And eventually he must face the world beyond  Arcadia. In Arcadia, Groff displays her literary gifts to stunning effect."Fascinating."---People (****)"It's not possible to write any better without showing off."---Richard Russo, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Empire Falls"Dazzling."---Vogue

Arcadia

Contemporary

'A really powerful novel' President Obama AMAZON.COM’s 2015 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER BARACK OBAMA'S BOOK OF THE YEAR A FINALIST FOR THE 2015 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets.

Fates and Furies

Literary

From Lauren Groff, author of the critically acclaimed and bestselling novel Fates and Furies, comes Delicate Edible Birds, one of the most striking short fiction debuts in years. Here are nine stories of astonishing insight and variety, each revealing a resonant drama within the life of a twentieth-century American woman. In "Sir Fleeting," a Midwestern farm girl on her honeymoon in Argentina falls into lifelong lust for a French playboy. In "Blythe," an attorney who has become a stay-at-home mother takes a night class in poetry and meets another full-time mother, one whose charismatic brilliance changes everything. In "The Wife of the Dictator," that eponymous wife ("brought back . . . from [the dictator's] last visit to America") grows more desperately, menacingly isolated every day. In "Delicate Edible Birds," a group of war correspondents-a lone, high-spirited woman among them-falls sudden prey to a brutal farmer while fleeing Nazis in the French countryside. In "Lucky Chow Fun," Groff returns us to Templeton, the setting of her first book, for revelations about the darkness within even that idyllic small town. In some of these stories, enormous changes happen in an instant. In others, transformations occur across a lifetime--or several lifetimes. Throughout the collection, Groff displays particular and vivid preoccupations. Crime is a motif--sex crimes, a possible murder, crimes of the heart. Love troubles recur; they're in every story--love in alcoholism, in adultery, in a flood, even in the great flu epidemic of 1918. Some of the love has depths, which are understood too late; some of the love is shallow, and also understood too late. And mastery is a theme--Groff's women swim and baton twirl, become poets, or try and try again to achieve the inner strength to exercise personal freedom. Overall, these stories announce a notable new literary master. Dazzlingly original and confident, Delicate Edible Birds further solidifies Groff's reputation as one of the foremost talents of her generation.

Delicate Edible Birds: And Other Stories

Grand Central Publishing

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Timeless and vast... The raw beauty of Ms. Groff's prose is one of the best things about Arcadia. But it is by no means this book's only kind of splendor."---Janet Maslin, The New York Times "Even the most incidental details vibrate with life Arcadia wends a harrowing path back to a fragile, lovely place you can believe in."---Ron Charles, The Washington Post In the fields of western New York State in the 1970s, a few dozen idealists set out to live off the land, founding a commune centered on the grounds of a decaying mansion called Arcadia House. Arcadia follows this romantic utopian dream from its hopeful start through its heyday. Arcadia's inhabitants include Handy, the charismatic leader; his wife, Astrid, a midwife; Abe, a master carpenter; Hannah, a baker and historian; and Abe and Hannah's only child, Bit. While Arcadia rises and falls, Bit, too, ages and changes. He falls in love with Helle, Handy's lovely, troubled daughter. And eventually he must face the world beyond Arcadia. In Arcadia, Groff displays her literary gifts to stunning effect. "Fascinating."---People (****) "It's not possible to write any better without showing off."---Richard Russo, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Empire Falls "Dazzling."---Vogue

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER -- the debut novel by the acclaimed author of Fates and Furies. "The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the fifty-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass." So begins The Monsters of Templeton, a novel spanning two centuries: part contemporary story of a girl's search for her father; part historical novel; and part ghost story. In the wake of a disastrous love affair with her older, married archaeology professor at Stanford, brilliant Wilhelmina Cooper arrives back at the doorstep of her hippie mother-turned-born-again-Christian's house in Templeton, NY, a storybook town her ancestors founded that sits on the shores of Lake Glimmerglass. Upon her arrival, a prehistoric monster surfaces in the lake bringing a feeding frenzy to the quiet town, and Willie learns she has a mystery father, one her mother kept secret Willie's entire life. The beautiful, broody Willie is told that the key to her biological father's identity lies somewhere in her family's history, so she buries herself in the research of her twisted family tree and finds more than she bargained for as a chorus of voices from the town's past--some sinister, all fascinating--rise up around her to tell their side of the story. In the end, dark secrets come to light, past and present day are blurred, and old mysteries are finally put to rest. The Monsters of Templeton is a fresh, virtuoso performance that has placed Lauren Groff among the best writers of today.

The Monsters of Templeton: A Novel

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years.\nAt age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed. With stunning revelations and multiple threads, and in prose that is vibrantly alive and original, Groff delivers a deeply satisfying novel about love, art, creativity, and power that is unlike anything that has come before it. Profound, surprising, propulsive, and emotionally riveting, it stirs both the mind and the heart.

Penguin USA

The Monsters of Templeton

Hyperion

Title: The Monsters of Templeton Binding: Paperback Author: LaurenGroff Publisher: HyperionBooks

The Monsters of Templeton by Groff, Lauren (2008) Paperback

Hyperion Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Groff, Lauren. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Groff, Lauren

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Groff, Lauren. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Best American Short Stories 2024

Monsters of Templeton

Arcadia

Fates and Furies

Delicate Edible Birds: And Other Stories

Arcadia

The Monsters of Templeton: A Novel

Fates and Furies

The Monsters of Templeton

The Monsters of Templeton by Groff, Lauren (2008) Paperback