Vampires in the Lemon Grove

I'm not sure if I can make sense of why I liked this so much. I think more than anything, and more than any recent books I've read, this one made me want to sit back, and think deeply about these stories. I could only manage to read two stories a night, because of this. And no author in a long, long time has done that for me.
I think I am now a huge fan of Karen Russell. This is some of the most intelligent writing I've ever read. Clever, inventive, precise, yet still packed with magnetic characters. The prose of each story, even if the styles vary, is always controlled, like each letter was set in place with tweezers. In fact, often times throughout the stories, I was arrested by the rich subtext beneath her bizarre tales. The final show more tale could easily have suffered the route of a bad horror film. Instead she get to the core of lonely, frightened boys playing at acting tough, like the characters in the last story.
Russell possesses such a gift for evoking a setting, so that I had no trouble shifting from Italy to Japan to an inner city playground. Once you accept her odd, interesting, imaginative worlds, it’s much easier to find the humor and truth in her characters. These stories span the globe, many different eras and a variety of socio-economic conditions, but at their heart, they all investigate lonely people in search of connections.

1. Vampires in the Lemon Grove (Title story): This story made the "Twilight" phenomenon seem as juvenile as it is. There's so much more to vampires! They're people just like us, and they have restraint, exotic histories, and can hold love for generations. It was quite a lovely story, but I was unsure of the ending.

2. Reeling for the Empire: This was one of my favorites and should be anthologized alongside Ray Bradbury. It has that old world feel, as if plucked from the 19th Century. I'm not sure if the story was a metaphor for the current problem of human trafficking, but anyone interested in this issue should read this. I don't want to give anything away, but this story was so weird, and so beautifully haunting, I had to walk away from the book and marvel at the author's expansive imagination. Such a large piece of investigation must have gone on, to learn about the spinning of silk, at this time! And customs, in that era. I was wowed.

3. The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach, 1979: A love story cross between Junot Diaz and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. As I ended this novel, I desperately wanted more details. I learned by this story, Russell has a way of holding back. She'll draw you in, but you're not getting that close. I, for one, wanted to learn more about the huge albatross masses that suddenly came into being there, and why.... And what about their stealing things? Man, that could have been a whole 'nother novel in Itself!! How? WHY??? Lol...

4. Proving Up: This one reminded me of Stephen King's short story, "The Man in the Black Suit". I'd love to ask the author if King was of any inspiration to her. There's also a Little House on the Prairie feel to the landscape and characters. Not giving away plot points, but this story will leave you proving up and staying up. (Like I said, Stephen King.) WHO was that figure, in the end...?

5. The Barn at the End of Our Term: Again, sheer inventiveness. Such imagination!! Dead presidents reincarnating into stable horses. Who else could imagine and pull this off in a dozen pages? This story started off somewhat slowly, but keep reading, it's just a set-up for the fantastic 'leap' at the end. The last few paragraphs had the thrill of the final straightaway at the Kentucky Derby. I would love more back story on it all.

6. Dougbert Shackelton's Rules for Antarctic Tailgating: This was my least favorite. I think you need to know more about Shackelton's exploration story to get the humor. I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be funny. But I didn't get it, sorry.

7. The New Veterans: My favorite story hands down. This is the one that makes me want to meet the author. This is a war story dealing with the issues of Iraqi war veterans. This story was well-researched and spot on. Her use of magic realism was awe-inspiring. She used the supernatural in a way that didn't detract from the reality of war, but enhanced it like a garnish, as if adding an even brighter ornament to the reverence we have for those that sacrifice their lives in war. And, she obviously researched massages.

8. The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis: Ok, by this story, I'm convinced that Russell is one of the smartest living writers. Anyone that has the experience of being marginalized during their school years will recognize this story, and Eric. She somehow accomplishes the impossible by forcing the reader to sympathize with the bully and the bullied. Perhaps that was the point, but if you want your stories to end cleanly, then this will leave you frustrated. Personally, I don't need a clean ending, but if I should ever have the honor of meeting Russell, I'm sure my first question will be, "What happened to Eric Mutis??!!??"

This is a great collection from a writer with a fresh, exciting voice, one to seek out, hold on and look forward to. I can't wait to explore Karen's other collection and read her novel, hoping that she will publish more of her great stories in the near future. Thumbs up!! show less

This is a book of short stories by Swamplandia! author Karen Russell. I wasn't surprised to find each story to be inventive and unusual, but I was unprepared for how much variety and heart Russell put into a slender volume of stories. From an eerie story about homesteaders in Nebraska, to a group of former presidents reincarnated as horses, each story was fantastic. I'm looking forward to more from Russell.

Karen Russell's two previous books, the novel Swamplandia! and the story collection St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves have received impressive critical acclaim and popular success, and I'm sure that this collection will continue that trend.

The stories in this book show tremendous skill in this young (b. 1981) writer, and also a remarkable range. Russell shows mastery and confidence with a sweeping variety of settings, character types, and moods. All of this volume's stories include some element of fantasy, but here too she ranges from a subtle touch of the supernatural to completely fantastical plots.

Russell also has a terrific talent for utterly delightful descriptive phrases. A group of Japanese women are "graceful as show more calligraphy"; a sod hut in summer is "as hot as the held breath of the world"; a man's face is "as taut and bloated with pain as a waterskin"; a toy gun "required sixteen triple-A batteries to make a noise like a tubercular guinea pig."

Two of my favorite stories illustrate Russell's range:

"Proving Up" is a dark and gritty tale of a settler family in frontier Nebraska, and an incredibly fresh take on the tired old "coming of age" theme. There is a point, this story tells us, where perseverance in the face of hardship becomes madness rather than strength.

In "The Barn at the End of Our Term," a random selection of past US presidents find themselves reincarnated as horses, now all living on the same farm. The story is both sweetly moving and riotously funny; the horses debate whether their situation is Heaven or Hell ("don't you think Heaven would smell better?" one of them asks), plot an escape to return to their careers in Washington, and bestow officious titles on each other, such as Governor of the Cow Pastures and Commanding General of the Standing Chickens.

I do have a few quibbles with this book: "Dougbert Shackleton's Rules for Antarctic Tailgating" was for me just a long and unfunny gag, and I thought "The New Veterans" could have used a few hard editorial shakes to get its constituent parts to settle down into a more compact and cohesive whole. And I felt that the endings of a few of the stories were a little faltering; as if the story couldn't decide whether it was ending with a rousing cymbal-crash or doing a quiet fadeout.

But I've read Russell's first collection of stories, and I think this one shows a clear improvement in her technical skills as a writer. And by any measure, this is an excellent collection by an excellent author. One can only wonder where Russell will go in the decades ahead. show less

Vampires in the Lemon Grove, a selection of short stories, explores imaginative settings while still injecting real life emotions and current struggles. The title story,even though about two long married vampires, is more about their relationship and addiction than about whether the thirst for blood can be satisfied with a fresh lemon. I enjoyed how each story created a new fantastical world - Japanese women turned into silkworms for the benefit of their country, a veteran's tattoo that seems to be subject to change based on the abilities of his masseuse, a stable of horses that are reincarnated presidents-- and yet the emotions of the characters were entirely relatable. Plus she really writes well.

I blinked down at a little blond child show more and then saw that my two hands were shaking violently, soundlessly, like old friends wishing not to burden me with their troubles. I dropped the candies into the children’s bags, thinking: You small mortals don’t realize the power of your stories.

Girls trailed him down the boardwalk, clucking stupidly about the new waxy sheen to his head. Samson was seventeen and had what Nal could only describe as a bovine charm: he was hale and beefy, with a big laugh and the deep serenity of a grazing creature.

She tries hard to spite the magazines and persist in her childhood belief that aging is honorable, to wear her face proudly, like a scratched medallion, the widening circles of purple under her eyes and the trenches on her brow.

He walks into the room with an actual swagger, that sort of boastful indifference to gravity that Beverly associates with cats and Italian women.

Book jacket:
A dejected teenager believes that the universe is communicating with him through talismanic objects left behind in a seagull’s nest. Girls held captive in a silk factory slowly transmute into human silkworms, spinning delicate threads from their own bellies and escaping by seizing the means of production for their own revolutionary ends. A massage therapist discovers she has the power to heal by manipulating the tattoos on a war veteran’s torso. And in the collection’s marvelous title story, two vampires in a sun-drenched lemon grove try helplessly to slake their thirst for blood. show less

A collection of strange and beautifully written short stories, in which, among other things, vampires learn to suck lemons, young women are turned into silkworms, and former US presidents find themselves reincarnated as horses. Oddly enough, the title story was, for me, the least satisfying of the lot (although still very well-written), but the best of them sort of crawl into your brain and do some really bizarre and interesting things in there. The silkworm story ("Reeling for the Empire") is particularly unforgettable.

Karen Russell's "Vampires in the Lemon Grove" is a collection of delightfully quirky stories that made me laugh out loud at times. Her imagination is limitless, as is her ability to write an engaging tale. There is so much magic and wonder in this collection I could not choose a favorite. That being said, I know I will always smile at the mental picture I have of two geriatric vampires sitting on a bench sucking on lemons in beautiful Italy.

A professor recommended this author's work to me and, for the most part, it lived up to my expectations. "Reeling" is pure genius, "The Vampire in the Lemon Grove" was quite good, but "The New Veterans" was probably her crowning achievement. The other stories in the collection either didn't appeal to me or simply fell flat at the end. Her writing is superb and regardless of which you prefer, if you're in it for the pleasure of experiencing beautiful (or startling as the case may be) prose, you won't be disappointed.