Lily Tuck
Author of The News from Paraguay
About the Author
Lily Tuck is the author of four novels, including the National Book Award winner The News from Paraguay, and Siam, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist, and a collection of stories. She divides her time between New York City and Maine.
Works by Lily Tuck
Associated Works
Mentors, Muses & Monsters: 30 Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives (2009) — Contributor — 67 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Tuck, Lily
- Birthdate
- 1938-10-10
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
France (birth) - Birthplace
- Paris, France
- Places of residence
- Peru
Bangkok, Thailand
New York, New York, USA
Maine, USA - Occupations
- novelist
short story writer
biographer
editor - Awards and honors
- Guggenheim Fellowship
- Agent
- Georges Borchardt, Inc.
- Short biography
- Lily Tuck was born in Paris, France, to an American family. During her childhood, she also lived in Uruguay and Peru, and in Thailand as an adult. She has said. "Living in other countries has given me a different perspective as a writer. It has heightened my sense of dislocation and rootlessness...I think this feeling is reflected in my characters, most of them women whose lives are changed by either a physical displacement or a loss of some kind." Her novel The News from Paraguay won the 2004 National Book Award for Fiction.
She has published six other novels, three collections of short stories, and A Woman of Rome, a biography of Italian novelist Elsa Morante (2002). She has also edited numerous anthologies. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Fiction, and the Antioch Review. She now divides her time between New York City and Islesboro, Maine.
Members
Reviews
It barely took me an hour to read "Sisters", Lily Tuck's latest novel (novella? short story?). Written in brief paragraphs, smoothly flowing in an almost stream-of-consciousness style, it makes for an entertaining and deceptively easy read. In reality, in this book there is so much that is subtly suggested and cunningly implied, that it packs in its few pages the effect of a novel thrice its length.
The unnamed narrator's marriage is haunted by the presence of her new husband's first wife - ominously referred to throughout as she - whom he divorced to marry the narrator. After some initial awkwardness, the narrator manages to maintain a decent relationship with her husband's son and daughter and, to a lesser extent, also with she/her. But we soon learn that beneath the genteel veneer, there is a lurking obsession, an all-consuming jealousy.
The bare bones of the plot will inevitably draw comparisons with Du Maurier's [b:Rebecca|17899948|Rebecca|Daphne du Maurier|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386605169s/17899948.jpg|46663], as both the author and her erudite narrator are very much aware. Indeed, there are knowing references to Du Maurier's novel which are quickly turned on their head ("I dreamed - not that I went back to Manderley - that I was in a big city..."). Similarly, that novel's dark, Gothic atmosphere is here replaced by a different sort of darkness - the darkness of black humour and biting satire, as we witness the making and unmaking of a contemporary marriage. Brilliant, witty stuff; sparkling like the champagne which propels the book to its denouement.
An electronic version of this novel was provided through NetGalley in return for an honest review.… (more)
The unnamed narrator's marriage is haunted by the presence of her new husband's first wife - ominously referred to throughout as she - whom he divorced to marry the narrator. After some initial awkwardness, the narrator manages to maintain a decent relationship with her husband's son and daughter and, to a lesser extent, also with she/her. But we soon learn that beneath the genteel veneer, there is a lurking obsession, an all-consuming jealousy.
The bare bones of the plot will inevitably draw comparisons with Du Maurier's [b:Rebecca|17899948|Rebecca|Daphne du Maurier|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386605169s/17899948.jpg|46663], as both the author and her erudite narrator are very much aware. Indeed, there are knowing references to Du Maurier's novel which are quickly turned on their head ("I dreamed - not that I went back to Manderley - that I was in a big city..."). Similarly, that novel's dark, Gothic atmosphere is here replaced by a different sort of darkness - the darkness of black humour and biting satire, as we witness the making and unmaking of a contemporary marriage. Brilliant, witty stuff; sparkling like the champagne which propels the book to its denouement.
An electronic version of this novel was provided through NetGalley in return for an honest review.… (more)
Protagonist Eliza (Ella) Lynch is an Irishwoman living in Paris in 1854 when she meets and becomes the mistress of Francisco (Franco) Solano López. She and Franco travel by sea to his homeland in Paraguay, where he eventually becomes dictator, and leads the country into war with neighboring Brazil and Argentina. The book follows her privileged existence, motherhood, and how her life is impacted by Franco’s warmongering.
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the positive side, I feel I learned a great deal about Paraguay of the 1850s-1870s. The two main characters are believable. The descriptions of the local flora and fauna are vividly portrayed. On the negative side, there are just too many people in this book, and it is almost impossible to keep track of them all. It flits from one scene to another rather abruptly, so it does not have a pleasing flow. It recounts history in the form of “this happened and then that happened” rather than weaving the events together into a more entertaining story.
Ella and Franco were real people, but the author emphasizes that this is a work of historical fiction. It is based upon facts, but a substantial amount is imagined. I can say I liked it and I am glad to have read it, but I am also rather glad to be finished. I will seek out more reading material about Paraguay, as it has a rich history of which I was previously unaware.
… (more)
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the positive side, I feel I learned a great deal about Paraguay of the 1850s-1870s. The two main characters are believable. The descriptions of the local flora and fauna are vividly portrayed. On the negative side, there are just too many people in this book, and it is almost impossible to keep track of them all. It flits from one scene to another rather abruptly, so it does not have a pleasing flow. It recounts history in the form of “this happened and then that happened” rather than weaving the events together into a more entertaining story.
Ella and Franco were real people, but the author emphasizes that this is a work of historical fiction. It is based upon facts, but a substantial amount is imagined. I can say I liked it and I am glad to have read it, but I am also rather glad to be finished. I will seek out more reading material about Paraguay, as it has a rich history of which I was previously unaware.
… (more)
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Statistics
- Works
- 11
- Also by
- 5
- Members
- 1,479
- Popularity
- #17,374
- Rating
- 3.4
- Reviews
- 52
- ISBNs
- 74
- Languages
- 4
Tuck has not made the wife character here very compelling or sympathetic, aside from being deeply shaken by finding her husband passed away. She's a painter, though she has only ever sold a few paintings to friends. She was raped by her husband's cousin, but never says anything about it. She has had an affair for unclear reasons but that may have had to do with resentment over her husband's professional success. He's the far more interesting character. A mathematics professor, Tuck works in references and explanations of some mathematical and philosophical topics into the book which for me were something approaching its saving grace.… (more)