Inside

“A skillful storyteller . . . attractively quick-witted and wry.” —J. M. Coetzee “Ohlin has a great eye, a great ear, and all the other equipment auguring a very successful future.”—Jay McInerney “Expect to hear her spoken of in the same reverent breath as Lorrie Moore and Joy Williams.” —Heidi Julavits From the highly acclaimed author of The Missing Person and Babylon and Other Stories, a resonant novel of entwined lives and a woman with an unsettling ability to broach the innermost dynamics of the people around her. When Grace, an exceedingly competent and devoted therapist in Montreal, stumbles across a man who has just failed to hang himself, her instinct to help kicks in immediately. Before long, however, she realizes that her feelings for this charismatic, extremely guarded stranger are far from straightforward. In the meantime, her troubled teenage patient, Annie, runs away from home and soon will reinvent herself in New York as an aspiring and ruthless actress, as unencumbered as humanly possible by any personal attachments. And Mitch, Grace’s ex-husband, who is a therapist as well, leaves the woman he’s desperately in love with to attend to a struggling native community in the bleak Arctic. We follow these four compelling, complex characters from Montreal and New York to Hollywood and Rwanda, each of them with a consciousness that is utterly distinct and urgently convincing. With razor-sharp emotional intelligence, Inside poignantly explores the many dangers as well as the imperative of making ourselves available to—and responsible for—those dearest to us.

Literature & Fiction

Ohlin, Alix

Literary

KNOPF

Grace is an exceedingly competent and devoted therapist living in Montreal. When she stumbles across a man who has just failed to hang himself, her instinct to help kicks in immediately. Before long, however, she realizes that her feelings for this charismatic, extremely guarded stranger are far from straightforward. In the meantime, her troubled teenage patient, Annie, runs away to pursue an acting career, and Grace's ex-husband Mitch leaves the woman he’s desperately in love with to attend to a struggling native community in the bleak Arctic. As we follow these four compelling, complex characters, Ohlin gives them each a consciousness that is utterly distinct and urgently convincing.

Inside (Vintage Contemporaries)

Vintage

These sixteen stories by the much-celebrated Alix Ohlin illuminate the connections between all of us—connections we choose to break, those broken for us, and those we find and make in spite of ourselves.

Signs and Wonders (Vintage Contemporaries)

Dramas & Plays

A powerful debut set in New Mexico over a long hot summer of surprises and discoveries. Lynn Fleming happily abandoned dusty Albuquerque to study art history in New York, but when her younger brother disappears she reluctantly answers their mother’s summons and returns home. Although she soon finds Wylie among the eco-warriors for whom he’s a philosopher king, she begins to realize how much else is still missing. Her memories of her late cherished father are compromised by her mother’s relationship with a married man. And her fascination with two paintings her father left behind leads her to question everything she’d believed about her parents’ marriage and, by extension, her own behavior. Meanwhile, her attempt to regain Wylie’s affection is unsettled by her affair with one of his cohorts, even as the pranks they play–in order to protect the landscape they see being violated all around them–grow increasingly serious and then spiral out of control, putting everyone at risk. A story of homecoming and coming-of-age, of convictions shaken and regained, of unspeakable loss and hard-won reconciliation, The Missing Person is funny and piercing throughout, a brilliant beginning to a bright new career.

The Missing Person

Genre Fiction

Following The Missing Person, her highly praised debut—“A seriously entertaining and probing novel,” wrote The Washington Post Book World—Alix Ohlin gives us a collection of stories that demonstrates her impressive range. In their various locales, from Montreal (where a prosthetic leg casts a furious spell on its beholders) to the Southwest (where a Soviet-era exchange student changes a family’s dynamic forever), the characters in Babylon are coming to terms with life’s epiphanies, for good or ill. They range from the very young who, confronted with their parents’ limitations, discover their own resolve, to those facing middle age and its particular indignities, no less determined to assert themselves and shape their destinies. A tenacious eight-year-old practices piano on paper keys; an expectant mother, settling into an idyllic farmhouse, discovers the tragic story of its previous, rightful inhabitants; and a fictional haunted hospital becomes an obsession for a ghostwriter grappling with her empty nest. In stories at once clear-eyed and compassionate, brimming with the wit, humor, and warmth for which she has been widely acclaimed, Alix Ohlin gives us unforgettable characters enmeshed in situations both familiar and absurd—all vitally engaged in the transfigurations that delineate any coming of age. In short, a striking and assured collection from an exceptionally gifted writer.

Babylon and Other Stories

Short Stories & Anthologies

Shortlisted for the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize "Evocative . . . traces [its] characters over long arcs of time and place with equal amounts grace and wit. Most revelatory is the way that each [sister] fights to find her own life as an artist outside the expectations of others and the demands of a male-dominated world." --Vogue A masterful achievement: a joint coming-of-age story and an achingly poignant portrait of the strange, painful, ultimately life-sustaining bonds between sisters. Lark and Robin are half-sisters whose similarities end at being named for birds. While Lark is shy and studious, Robin is wild and artistic. Raised in Montreal by their disinterested single mother, they form a fierce team in childhood regardless of their differences. As they grow up, Lark excels at school and Robin becomes an extraordinary pianist. At seventeen, Lark flees to America to attend college, where she finds her calling in documentary films, and her sister soon joins her. Later, in New York City, they find themselves tested: Lark struggles with self-doubt, and Robin chafes against the demands of Juilliard. Under pressure, their bond grows strained and ultimately is broken, and their paths abruptly diverge. Years later, Lark's life is in tatters and Robin's is wilder than ever. As Lark tries to take charge of her destiny, she discovers that despite the difficulties of their relationship, there is only one person she can truly rely on: her sister. In this gripping, unforgettable novel about art, ambition, sisterhood, motherhood, and self-knowledge, Alix Ohlin traces the rich and complicated lives of two indelible women. Dazzlingly insightful and beautifully crafted, Dual Citizens captures the unique language of sisters and makes visible the imperceptible strings that bind us to the ones we love for good.

Dual Citizens: A novel

A Scotiabank Giller Prize Finalist\nRaised in Montreal by their disinterested single mother, half-sisters Lark and Robin form a fierce team in spite of their differences. When Lark flees to America to attend college, her sister soon joins her.But even as Lark discovers a calling working in documentary film, she struggles with self-doubt, and Robin chafes against the demands of studying piano at Juilliard. Their bond strains under increasing pressure until it breaks.\nYears later, Lark’s life is in tatters and Robin’s is wilder than ever. As Lark tries to take charge of her destiny, she discovers that despite the difficulties of their relationship, there is only one person she can truly rely on: her sister.\nA gripping, unforgettable novel about art, ambition, sisterhood, motherhood, and self-knowledge, Dual Citizens captures the unique language of sisters and makes visible the imperceptible strings that bind us to the ones we love for good.

Dual Citizens: A novel (Vintage Contemporaries)

Product Description 
An Esquire Best Book of Summer • A collection of glittering, surprising, darkly funny stories of people testing the boundaries of their lives—from the award-winning author of Dual Citizens, who is "spoken of in the same reverent breath as Lorrie Moore and Joy Williams" (Heidi Julavits, author of The Folded Clock).\nIn the mordantly funny "Money, Geography, Youth," Vanessa arrives home from a gap year volunteering in Ghana to find that her father is engaged to her childhood best friend. Unable to reconcile the girl she went to dances with in the eighth grade and the woman in her father's bed, Vanessa turns to a different old friendship for her own, unique diversion.\nIn the subversive "The Brooks Brothers Guru," Amanda drives to upstate New York to rescue her gawky cousin from a cult, only to discover clean-cut, well-dressed men living in a beautiful home, discussing the classics, and drinking sophisticated cocktails, moving her to wonder what freedoms she might willingly trade away for a life of such elegant comfort.\nAnd in "The Universal Particular," Tamar welcomes her husband's young stepcousin into their home, imagining they are saving this young woman from Somalia by way of Stockholm, only to find their cool suburban life of potlucks and air-conditioning knocked askew in ways they cannot quite understand.\nPopulated with imperfect families, burned potential, and inescapable old flames, the thirteen stories in 
We Want What We Want are, each one, diamond-sharp—sparkling with pain, humor, and beauty. 
 Review 
FINALIST FOR THE ATWOOD GIBSON WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE \n"The collection explore[s] desire and grief through a finely drawn and eclectic cast of characters... Moving... Ohlin’s sly irony leavens the aching plights of characters for whom closure is unattainable... True-to-life." 
—Rachel Yoder, 
The New York Times Book Review\n"Glittering... Shot through with dark humor and keen powers of observation, this collection probes our contradictions with incisive clarity." 
— 
Esquire\n"Ohlin’s slyly humorous and devastatingly sensuous collection of short fiction shines a brilliant light on women’s inchoate desires." 
— 
O 
Magazine"That’s the magic, though: the seeming simplicity of the prose, the plain-spoken quality underpinning these stories, conceals a staggering level of craft, of command and expertise. Most readers will never notice it, slipping effortlessly into the story, transfixed as Ohlin pulls a rabbit from a hat.” 
— 
The Toronto Star 
“There’s no shortage of phrases, sentences, and paragraphs to savour on every page … The elegant stories are delectable, electric, and clever … An exceptional, satisfying reading experience.” 
 —Vancouver Sun 
“Every story in this exquisite collection is a gem full of startling surprises and insights into human nature. The collection demands and rewards repeated readings, the better to savour Ohlin’s near magical ability to achieve such depth with seemingly plain language and plotting. Ohlin packs entire lives into mere pages, allowing readers to join the flow of fully realized, complex scenarios whose key moments exude the inevitable open-endedness of real life. These stories bring us into the company of people who want what we all want: to connect, to matter, to heal, and to cross into unfamiliar territory, hoping that the risk will be worthwhile.” 
—Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury Citation\n"Ohlin’s collection revolves around the fleeting, fraught connections her characters make with other people. Our lives are threaded and tangled, Ohlin suggests, with other narratives, with people who flit in and out of our plotline as they furiously act out their own... The collection.. turns turns its attention to the great sweep of human life, how our years are filled with unexpected success or failure, how people reveal or hide themselves.... The great trick of Ohlin’s collection [is] to tame all the wildness of life into something we can brie

We Want What We Want: Stories

When art history grad student Lynn Fleming finds out that Wylie, her younger brother, has disappeared, she reluctantly leaves New York and returns to the dusty Albuquerque of her youth. What she finds when she arrives is more unsettling and frustrating than she could have predicted. Wylie is nowhere to be found, not in the tiny apartment he shares with a grungy band of eco-warriors, or lingering close to his suspiciously well-maintained Caprice. As Wylie continues to evade her, Lynn becomes certain that Angus, one of her brother’s environmental cohorts, must know more than he is revealing. What follows is a tale of ecological warfare, bending sensibilities, and familial surprises as Lynn searches for her missing person.

United States

In their various locales--from Montreal (where a prosthetic leg casts a furious spell on its beholders) to New Mexico (where a Soviet-era exchange student redefines home for his hosts)--the characters in Babylon are coming to terms with life's epiphanies, for good or ill. They range from the very young who, confronted with their parents' limitations, discover their own resolve, to those facing middle age and its particular indignities, no less determined to assert themselves and shape their destinies. Babylon and Other Stories showcases the wit, humor, and insight that have made Alix Ohlin one of the most admired young writers working today.

Babylon and Other Stories (Vintage Contemporaries)

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

Books by Ohlin, Alix

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

Inside

Inside (Vintage Contemporaries)

Signs and Wonders (Vintage Contemporaries)

The Missing Person

Babylon and Other Stories

Dual Citizens: A novel

Dual Citizens: A novel (Vintage Contemporaries)

We Want What We Want: Stories

The Missing Person

Babylon and Other Stories (Vintage Contemporaries)