Our first excursion was to the Bronx Zoo. The Photographer wanted to shoot me holding a python. The snakemaster wrapped the thickest, blackest one around my shoulders. An employee of the zoo offered to take a picture of the python and me with the Photographer, referring to me as the Photographer's daughter. At that moment the snake picked up its head and began to slither towards my face. I did not scream. I pleaded with the snakemaster to take the python off me.
After the snake was in its tank, I washed my hands with a special soap. One wash was not enough. He let me wash as many times as I wanted. . . . 
There is fear in my eyes. I see the fear clearly even in the blurred snapshot. The adults waiting in line with their children must have seen it too. Fear like I have seen in my sister's eyes.
Quick Kills chronicles the desperate longing to belong as well as the effect of neglect, familial absence, and the nature of secrets. The young female narrator is seduced by an older man who convinces her that she is the perfect subject for his photographs. Meanwhile, the narrator's sister embarks on an equally precarious journey. Never clearly delineating the border between art and pornography, the narrator's escalating disquiet is evidence that lines have been crossed.
Lynn Lurie is an attorney with an MA in International Affairs and a MFA in writing. Quick Kills is her second novel.

Quick Kills

Literature & Fiction

Lurie, Lynn

United States

Etruscan Press

Museum of Stones reveals a possessive/obsessive world of a love that must be released. An exceptional child collects too many rocks, invents a garbage recycler that runs amok, does not “play well.” His mother takes their relationship to extremes, threatening her sanity and health, a wrenching yet often funny account.

Museum of Stones

Literary

This powerful novel depicts the reign of violence perpetrated in Peru in the 1980s by the Shining Path guerrillas, a Maoist-based organization, and the subsequent authoritarian counterattack by the Peruvian government. It explores these horrific events through the eyes of a young American photojournalist and humanitarian worker, Lisette, who bears witness to the genocide of the Peruvian Indians in whose village she has chosen to live. "I use the camera to block my view," says Lisette. This is the start of her double vision―trying to forget and trying to recall―and her struggle to come to terms with the human capacity for cruelty. But the grim reality in Peru is so overpowering that she carries it with her back to New York and through the rest of her life. Having abandoned a lover along with the fight, she desperately tries to find meaning beyond that of mere survival.

Corner of the Dead (Juniper Prize for Poetry)

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Books by Lurie, Lynn

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

Quick Kills

Museum of Stones

Corner of the Dead (Juniper Prize for Poetry)