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The Isle of Youth: Stories
by Laura van den Berg
Paperback : 256 pages
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Laura van den Berg’s gorgeous new book, The Isle of Youth, explores the lives of women mired in secrecy and deception. From a newlywed caught in an inscrutable marriage, to private eyes working a baffling case in South Florida, to a teenager who assists her magician mother and steals ...
Introduction
Laura van den Berg’s gorgeous new book, The Isle of Youth, explores the lives of women mired in secrecy and deception. From a newlywed caught in an inscrutable marriage, to private eyes working a baffling case in South Florida, to a teenager who assists her magician mother and steals from the audience, the characters in these bewitching stories are at once vulnerable and dangerous, bighearted and ruthless, and they will do what it takes to survive.
Each tale is spun with elegant urgency, and the reader grows attached to the marginalized young women in these stories—women grappling with the choices they’ve made and searching for the clues to unlock their inner worlds. This is the work of a fearless writer whose stories feel both magical and mystical, earning her the title of “sorceress” from her readers. Be prepared to fall under her spell.
An NPR Best Book of 2013
Editorial Review
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, November 2013: In her second short story collection, The Isle of Youth, Laura van den Berg plays frequently with readers' expectations. She surprises and delights with her gift for language and tone. If there's a cohesive bond between these seven stories, it's the women who inhabit them, all of whom are in search of something: luck, love, loved ones. Like all great short story collections, Isle is as much about interior landscapes as they are exterior ones. The centerpiece of the book is "Antarctica," about a woman who travels to the Antarctic Peninsula to recover the bones of her dead brother. It's in the frigid topography of the southernmost tip of the world that we discover a haunted secret, one that reveals a heartbreaking meditation on the weight of grief. --Kevin NguyenExcerpt
I LOOKED FOR YOU, I CALLED YOUR NAMEThe first thing that went wrong was the emergency landing. My husband and I were both reading In Flight Magazine and enjoying the complimentary wine in first class—I’d never flown first class before, but it was our honeymoon and we thought that was what we were supposed to do; drink in the daytime, luxuriate in our good fortune—when the plane lurched and oxygen masks fell from the ceiling and a passenger in the back screamed. We didn’t know it then, but the pilot was already steering the plane toward an empty brown field, preparing for our descent. ...
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Discussion Questions
No discussion questions at this time.Notes From the Author to the Bookclub
“The stories in Laura van den Berg’s dreamy The Isle of Youth are absolutely captivating.”—Vanity Fair "The Isle of Youth, is a smart, fun, noir-y treasure map of where families hide their secrets and lost souls hide themselves. Van den Berg somehow packs a duffel bag of plot into carry-on-size stories. She also has the right kind of range: from brutal to moving to funny, South America to Paris to Antarctica, really great to freaking outstanding." —Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine “Van den Berg excels at complexity, eccentricity, maximalism of plot . . . Her emphases on elaborate plot and intentional loose ends are a refreshing departure from the contemporary taste for tidy, minimal plot paired with maximal voices.” —The New Inquiry “Discovery of the month.” —O. Magazine “If ever there was a writer going places, it’s Laura van den Berg, who follows up her debut collection, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, with the ambitious, modular The Isle of Youth, whose seven stories are arranged along the themes of family secrets with noirish intrigue.” —Publisher’s Weekly (starred review) “A mesmerizing collection of stories about the secrets that keep us.” —Kirkus “In The Isle of Youth, a group of young women narrators seek to understand the people in their lives as a means of understanding themselves. Magically, Laura van den Berg turns a group of lost souls into a beautiful and compelling read.” —Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto “Laura van den Berg is one of the most freakishly talented young writers at work today, and a master of the short story form. Hers are deliciously unnerving, moving, and monstrous tales.” —Karen Russell, author of Vampires in the Lemon Grove and Swamplandia!Book Club Recommendations
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