Vampires in the Lemon Grove
Karen Russell's second story collection runs on imagination. An old married vampire couple tries to quench their thirst with lemons in an Italian grove. Girls in a Japanese silk factory are slowly transformed into silkworms. A massage therapist works the scar tissue of a traumatized war veteran and finds history under her hands. Each story starts from a fantastical premise and uses it to get at real feeling, loneliness, regret, desire, and the passage of time. Russell writes with a playful, precise voice that makes the impossible feel grounded. The collection shows why she is regarded as one of the most inventive short-story writers of her generation.
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What you might want to know about Vampires in the Lemon Grove
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A collection of inventive stories where the strange and the supernatural sit beside ordinary human longing.
Yes. Margaret Atwood called it a collection of smart, deft, and unsettling tales that challenge our expectations of reality.
Vampires in the Lemon Grove was written by Karen Russell, published in 2013 by Vintage.
Vampires in the Lemon Grove is 256 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Vampires in the Lemon Grove takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
Vampires in the Lemon Grove is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.