Moving to the tiny upstate New York community of Dustin, Tamara Johanssen meets a married man who becomes her friend and lover, a pair of women artists who make strawberry pot holders, an intrusive postman, a real estate representative who embellishes the town's potential, and a doctor who keeps a shocking secret. A first novel. 20,000 first printing.

Seriously: A Novel

Nevai, Lucia

Literature & Fiction

Little. Brown and Company

Fourteen stories deal with a couples travels in Egypt, an artisans' commune, a husband's arson conviction, divorce, and an alcoholic organist

Star Game (Iowa Short Fiction Award)

United States

Univ of Iowa Pr

Slightly malformed, very brilliant, Crane Cavanaugh is born into the world of three former charlatan preachers, two siblings, and a dismal childhood. Eventually adopted by loud, loving Ollie, Crane becomes a budding scientist with a teacher as her mentor, but her abusive childhood left an imprint she has to confront. Salvation is the sometimes funny, sometimes eerie story of the coming of age of Crane Cavanaugh, a budding scientist. Crane narrates her early life with a rich awareness of the natural world and her own precarious spot in it. Raised below the poverty line in Arnold, Iowa, by depraved adults who’ve given up the life of charlatans on the gospel circuit, Crane’s first-person account traces her experiences from disfiguration in the womb to well-deserved elevation in the halls of academe. Along the way, there are surprises and reversals. Crane is separated from the sister and brother who tried to protect her in infancy and assigned by welfare workers to life in a convent. Here, science is taught directly from the Bible. Crane rebels. Her belligerence causes the nuns to put her up for adoption. Reborn as Princess Hopkins by an adoring, middle-class, adoptive mother, Crane develops a satisfying relationship of admiration and respect with a public school science teacher who becomes her mentor. Princess/Crane inhabits parallel worlds, using her scientific precocity and formidable intellect to juggle sobering deficits in nurture, stunted emotional development, and the inevitable disasters that derive from sadomasochistic sexual imprinting―yet she somehow retains an inner continuity that remains unfazed, unjudgmental, and cheerful. Witty and richly intelligent, arch and earnest, Salvation has a Dickensian narrative reach, an empathetic heart, and a naturalist's eye for both the vagaries and the logic of human nature.

Salvation

Tin House Books

You won't find storybook families in these twelve wonderfully daring stories by Lucia Nevai. Over and over, Nevai's characters, from an urbane ex-hippie in Manhattan to a disabled war veteran in rural Louisiana, miss in their attempts to connect with the people they love most. But in the midst of all the missed connections, something remarkable (and often very funny) happens. In the tradition of Amy Bloom, Ellen Gilchrist, and Francine Prose, Nevai brings us unforgettable families in twelve versions of "normal" that we can all recognize. "Skewed and shrewd, Ms. Nevai makes a delightful tour guide to the fallout of the nuclear family."--The New York Times Book Review; "A writer of uncommon potency and reach."--Publishers Weekly, starred; "Nevai is a real talent with a ready wit and a steady gaze."--Kirkus Reviews.

Normal

Algonquin

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

Books by Nevai, Lucia

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

Seriously: A Novel

Star Game (Iowa Short Fiction Award)

Salvation

Normal