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WORK TITLE: The Bear and the Nightingale
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.katherinearden.com/
CITY:
STATE: VT
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2100493/katherine-arden
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born Austin, TX.
EDUCATION:Middlebury College, B.A., 2011; also studied in Moscow, Russia.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Worked in Maui, Hawaii, including as a horse tours guide, a personal tour guide for international visitors, a crepes maker in a food stand, and a freelance grant writer; then taught English at a high school in Briançon, France; then returned to Maui and worked as a marketing assistant for a real estate company.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Texas native Katherine Arden spent her junior year in high school studying in Rennes, France. She then spent more than a year or so living and studying in Moscow, Russia, after graduating from high school. When Arden returned to the United States, she enrolled in college in Vermont and studied French and Russian literature. After graduation, Arden moved to Maui, Hawaii, where she worked a variety of jobs before moving to France, where she taught English at a high school. She then temporarily moved back to her hometown of Austin, Texas, before returning to Maui and eventually moving to Vermont.
Arden began writing a novel while living in a yurt in Hawaii and continued to work on the novel while in France and then during her return to Hawaii. The Bear and the Nightingale: A Novel is set in Russia. On her home page, Arden explains that while she lived on a farm in Russia her next-door neighbors had a daughter named Vasilisa, whom they called Vasya. The two young women became friends, and Vasya became the basis for her protagonist in The Bear and the Nightingale. The novel is set in the fourteenth century and takes place near the wilderness in snowy, cold northern Russia. To keep a family entertained, an elderly servant tells stories featuring magic and the Winter King. However, young Vasya, who has a wild streak, is drawn beyond the stories and begins to sense that there is a dark magic in the nearby woods, where the forces of dark magic are growing stronger.
In an interview with Unbound Worlds Web site contributor Matt Staggs, Arden noted that the novel “takes elements from history and Russian folklore. I wanted to do a book based on Russian fairy tales, of which there are many, but I also wanted to root it in this historical moment that is earl[ier] than most folks’ conception of Russia.” Arden went on to note that she set the book in the era before the czars, adding: “This time period is poorly documented, so as an author, it gives you room to play.”
The Bear and the Nightingale revolves around Vasilisa “Vasya” Petrovna, who lost her mother during Vasya’s birth. As a result, her relationship with her father, Pytor Vladimirovich, is complex as her father both loves Vasya and also resents her because of his wife’s death. When Vasya reaches her teens, her father and brothers try to arrange a marriage for her among the elite in Moscow. The headstrong Vasya, however, does not want such an arranged marriage. Meanwhile, the woods near her father’s farming estate and the nearby village have long had a spiritual presence; spirits help keep the nearby villagers and others safe. Vasya, who inherited magical abilities from her grandmother, spends much of her time communing with these spirits.
Then a young priest, Konstantin, comes to the village and begins to preach to the villagers about giving up their superstitious ways. The handsome but arrogant priest also tells Vasya that she must stop communing with the forest and household spirits, who he claims are evil. As a result, the spirits begin to fade, placing the town in danger from something truly evil. Meanwhile, Vasya’s father, Pytor, gets remarried to the daughter of Grand Prince Ivan II. Vasya’s new stepmother, Anna, turns out to be a spiteful person who also believes the wood spirits are evil. Even worse, she wants to send Vasya off to a convent or kill her because of Vasya’s magical relationship with the spirits. Before long, Vasya realizes that it is up to her to help protect the village and her family even as a fierce winter storm blasts the region.
“The stunning prose … forms a fully immersive, unusual, and exciting fairy tale that will enchant readers from the first page,” wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor. Rachel Hoge, writing for BookPage, remarked: “The Bear and the Nightingale is a must-read for lovers of history, fairy tales and whirlwind adventures.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, October 15, 2016, “Spotlight on First Novels,” includes review of The Bear and the Nightingale: A Novel, p. 28.
BookPage, January, 2017, Rachel Hoge, review of The Bear and the Nightingale, p. 18.
Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2016, review of The Bear and the Nightingale.
Publishers Weekly, July 4, 2016, review of The Bear and the Nightingale, p. 46.
ONLINE
Katherine Arden Home Page, http://www.katherinearden.com/about (March 30, 2017).
NPR: National Public Radio, http://www.npr.org (January 22, 2017), Amal El-Mohtar, review of The Bear and the Nightingale.
Unbound Worlds, http://www.unboundworlds.com/ (October 9, 2016), Matt Staggs, “NYCC 2016: Katherine Arden Discusses The Bear and the Nightingale.”
LC control no.: n 2016025635
Descriptive conventions:
rda
LC classification: PS3601.R42
Personal name heading:
Arden, Katherine
Place of birth: Austin (Tex.)
Profession or occupation:
Authors
Found in: The bear and the nightingale, 2017: CIP t.p. (Katherine
Arden) data view ("Born in Austin, Texas, Katherine
Arden spent her junior year of high school in Rennes,
France. Following her acceptance to Middlebury College,
she deferred enrollment for a year in order to live and
study in Moscow. At Middlebury, she specialized in
French and Russian literature. Having received her B.A.,
Katherine moved to Maui, Hawaii, where she worked every
kind of odd job imaginable, including guiding horse
tours, working as a personal tour guide for
international visitors, making crepes in a stand, and
doing freelance grant-writing. After a year on the
island, she got a yearlong contract teaching English at
a high school in Briancon, France. She spent nine months
teaching, then returned to Maui. Currently, all her
worldly goods reside in a box or a duffel, and she is
combining her two favorite things: traveling and
scribbling")
Associated language:
eng
================================================================================
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I'm just a kid from Texas, but I had spent nearly two years living in Moscow, off and on, by the time I graduated Middlebury college, degree in hand in the spring of 2011. Between the snow in Russia and the snow in Vermont (look up Middlebury College, ok?) I was frozen stiff, and had managed to burn away all my ambition. All of it. So, lacking better ideas I went off to go work on a farm in Hawaii. To FIND MYSELF, you know? If you like sun, don't mind tents, and are ok eating a lot of papayas, I recommend this step.
While there, considerably bored (picking Macadmia nuts might be very zen, but it's not very interesting) I started writing a book. I set it in Russia because I had spent a lot of time there, and because there was Ukrainian family at the farm next to mine whose daughter was named Vasilisa. They called her Vasya. She had green eyes and she and I would chase chickens among the avocado trees. She became my heroine, and so my story started. I didn't know how to write a book. I thought it would be a cool thing to do. I just kept on haphazardly stringing events together. I had so much fun. Early drafts were terrible. There's a chapter posted in my extras. Don't laugh.
All that education and you want to be what!?
-You heard me mom and dad
But I kept plugging away. At some point I said to myself, hey, you kind of like this book writing thing. It's better than picking Macadamia nuts. You don't have any better ideas. Why not finish it?
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Easier said than done. After a marginally-successful attempt to settle back in Texas, I returned to Hawaii (Maui) and started back on the farm. Weird place to write a book set in Russia? Sure. Live dangerously. Anyway, I lived in a tent, and made smoothies in a roadside stand. My clothes molded in the jungle, my feet were permanently sandy, I perfected a pitiful look which I hoped made people more likely to pick me up hitchhiking. I kept writing.
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At some point I moved off the farm, to a one-room yurt that I shared with another girl. She got high a lot while I curled onto my sandy mattress and--wrote. Then I moved into an old yoga studio with a surfer. I got a job guiding horse tours. I was terrible at it. The book kept growing. I applied to be a teaching assistant in France (great program if you have some French). Got accepted. Moved from Hawaii to (I kid you not and this was totally random) the French Alps.
The world's weird, no? I went from living in a swimsuit, permanent sand, shoes-and-shirt optional to a dorm in a boarding school in a French ski town. I taught. I hiked. I skiied (badly). I got drunk with expats, and with french people. I made friends. I met a ski champion who (sweetly, beautifully, tenderly) broke my heart.
At the end of all this, I had a draft of a book.
But nothing else. Precious little money, even less confidence that anyone would want to read this thing I'd made. I moved back to Maui after my year in France. This time, I was determined. No more messing around, no more making smoothies, no horse tours, and for God's sake no Macadamia nuts. I was a SERIOUS WOMAN with A LOT TO OFFER. I got a real job, as a marketing assistant in a real estate company. I even got a real estate license.
Then I got a book deal, and well. . .so much for that.
Born in Austin, Texas, Katherine Arden spent a year of high school in Rennes, France. Following her acceptance to Middlebury College in Vermont, she deferred enrollment for a year in order to live and study in Moscow. At Middlebury, she specialized in French and Russian literature. After receiving her BA, she moved to Maui, Hawaii, working every kind of odd job imaginable, from grant writing and making crêpes to guiding horse trips. Currently she lives in Vermont, but really, you never know.
NYCC 2016: Katherine Arden Discusses The Bear and the Nightingale
By MATT STAGGS
October 9, 2016
BARNES & NOBLE
INDIEBOUND
AMAZON
IBOOKS
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Pic: Penguin Random House ©
Katherine Arden is the author of The Bear and the Nightingale, a work of fantasy set in medieval Russia. In this conversation, we discuss the dual nature of religious belief in Russia, and how the battle between paganism and Christianity influenced her book.
UNBOUND WORLDS: Your book feels like a fairy tale, but it’s set in a specific time and place.
KATHERINE ARDEN: The Bear and the Nightingale is set in Russia in the Middle Ages. It takes elements from history and Russian folklore. I wanted to do a book based on Russian fairy tales, of which there are many, but I also wanted to root it in this historical moment that is early than most folks’ conception of Russia. My book is set in an era before Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and the tsars; before almost every notion that we have of Russia. It’s a country that you think you know about, but before it became the country you know. This time period is poorly documented, so as an author, it gives you room to play.
UW: I could see the poor documentation being a boon for an author, but it could be difficult, as well. Do you worry that you might miss something and someone will call you out on it?There’s a comfort in writing fiction: If you make a mistake you won't be sued.
KA: There’s a comfort in writing fiction: If you make a mistake you won’t be sued. I have a large collection of books on very obscure topics, like farming practices in medieval Muscovy, and have a bunch of Russian friends and some good references that I go back to. I have a couple of very comprehensive histories of the time period. The cities were all wooden, and left very little archaeological evidence because they all burned down or got rebuilt. All writing was confined to the clergy, and they only copied Greek text, so written records are very sparse. They’re limited to the writings of a few travelers, and that kind of thing. This is a time period that is full of speculation, conjecture, and heroic histories that are probably not very true. It lends itself to fiction. Even the historians are relying on conjecture. No one knows. As a novelist, you can slide your way in and say, “Well, maybe this happened.”
UW: There’s a classic fairy tale archetype in your book: the wicked stepmother.
KA: I wanted a fairy tale. There are fairy tale tropes you come back to, but I also wanted to take those tropes and make them into people. When you read fairy tales, the stepmother is always evil and hates her stepdaughter. You ask why: What is it that makes her this way? My answer is that the stepmother and the main character have the same gift; a talent in common. In the stepmother’s case, it terrifies her and and makes her angry. In the main character’s case—the stepdaughter—she embraces it and who she is, talents and all. The fact that she does this infuriates her stepmother more and more. I tried to make them two people with believable motivations for their actions.
UW: Something happens in the novel that sends everything moving toward a dark direction. The stepmother forbids the protagonist and her father from doing something.
KA: Yes, the stepmother forbids them from worshiping their household gods and spirits, of which there are many in Russian folklore. In the original texts, you had one for the house, the wife of the one for the house, one for the stable—I brought these guardians into my story. The stepmother and Vasilisa, the main character, can both see the spirits. It sends the stepmother into a fit of religious anger. She calls the priest, who forbids the people form making offerings or believing in them. This leads to danger for the entire community.
UW: This was happening all over Europe. As Christianity spread, Europeans were being pressured to give up their native religions.
KA: There’s a concept in Russian historiography called “dual belief”, or dvoeverie in Russian. It is the idea that Christianity and paganism coexisted in the Russian mind. Christianity was for the afterlife, but the household spirits were for your day-to-day survival. The story came from wondering what would happen if someone disturbed this balance between paganism and Christianity. It was very delicate at that point. The conflict between the old faith and the new faith is something you see to this day in Russia.
UW: We’re talking about some heavy stuff, here, but this isn’t a boring novel. It’s a lot of fun, right?
KA: There are adventures, a frost demon, pretty horses, a snowstorm, danger, an exciting plot. None of these heady concepts make it into the book directly: They were just part of the story I wanted to tell.
The Bear and the Nightingale
Rachel Hoge
(Jan. 2017): p18.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE
By Katherine Arden
Del Rey
$27, 336 pages
ISBN 9781101885932
eBook available
DEBUT FICTION
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
In her first novel, The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden has created a coming-of-age story rooted in folklore, set in the Russian wilderness and surrounded by the magic of winter.
In 14th-century Russia, Vasya is an unusual girl--wild and strong, perceptive and brave--who grew up captivated by her family's frightening tales and legends. But when
Vasya finds the stories to be true, and realizes she has special and coveted abilities, she must protect her family from ancient dangers long believed to be fairy tales.
Arden masterfully portrays the unbridled freedom of her young heroine, as ominous forces loom and the tension heightens between the old ways of the village and the new official religion of Orthodox Christianity. Vasya and her family live in a world of beeswax and wine, of warm ovens and deep sleep, described in gorgeous and lyrical prose. At the novel's core lies a wonderfully woven family tapestry, with generations of sibling friendship, ancestral insight and marital love.
Arden, who has a B.A. in French and Russian literature, spent a year living and studying in Moscow, and her background in Russian culture delivers an added layer of authenticity. She includes a note concerning her transliteration process and a glossary of terms at the end, lending more context to this textured, remarkable blend of history and fantasy.
A commanding opening of an enchanting new series, The Bear and the Nightingale is a must-read for lovers of history, fairy tales and whirlwind adventures. With an unforgettable setting and an exceptional female protagonist, this literary fantasy is a spellbinding winter read.
--RACHEL HOGE
Visit BookPage.com to read a Q&A with Katherine Arden.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Hoge, Rachel. "The Bear and the Nightingale." BookPage, Jan. 2017, p. 18. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475225428&it=r&asid=0b3b1f35de90aa3db3921ad4ac450f2f. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475225428
Arden, Katherine: THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE
(Oct. 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Arden, Katherine THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE Del Rey/Ballantine (Adult Fiction) $27.00 1, 17 ISBN: 978-1-101-88593-2
Arden's supple, sumptuous first novel transports the reader to a version of medieval Russia where history and myth coexist.In a village in the northern woods where her father is the overlord, Vasya, a girl who has inherited her royal grandmother's understanding of magic and the spirits that inhabit the everyday world, is born to a mother who dies in childhood. Raised by a kind father, an anxious and spiteful stepmother, a wise nurse, and four older siblings, the feisty and near-feral girl--"too tall, skinny as a weasel, feet and face like a frog"--learns to talk with horses and befriends the household and forest spirits that live in and around the village. These, say the handsome young priest who has been exiled to serve their household, are demons and deserve to be exorcised. The battle between Vasya and driven Konstantin, who spends his free time painting icons, fuels the plot, as does the presence of two of the old gods, who represent death and fear. Arden has obviously immersed herself in Russian history and culture, but as a consummate storyteller, she never lets the details of place and time get in the way of a compelling and neatly structured narrative. Her main story, which has the unmistakable shape of an original fairy tale, is grounded in the realities of daily life in the time period, where the top of a large stove serves as a bed for the elderly and the ill and the dining hall of the Grand Prince of Moscow reeks of "mead and dogs, dust and humanity." Even minor characters are given their own sets of longings and fears and impact the trajectory of the story. Arden has shaped a world that neatly straddles the seen and the unseen, where readers will hear echoes of stories from childhood while recognizing the imagination that has transformed old material into something fresh.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Arden, Katherine: THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466329212&it=r&asid=cc16077cc8488dc49ad4c15117551583. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466329212
Spotlight on first novels
113.4 (Oct. 15, 2016): p28.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
* The Bear and the Nightingale. By Katherine Arden. Jan. 2017.336p. Del Rey, $27 (97811018859321.
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Gracefully threaded with Russian fairy tales and a tactile sense of place, Arden's debut tells the story of Vasya, daughter of a supposed witch, in the northern reaches of medieval Russia. As a child, Vasya's conversations with wood sprites and household spirits were an odd, but tolerable feature, but when her father marries deeply pious, troubled Anna, Vasya learns to keep her otherworldly friends a secret. They don't stay secret for long, however: a fanatical priest quickly catches on, and he becomes obsessed with Vasya's salvation, while Anna roils with anger over her stepdaughters brazen disregard for propriety. Most treacherous of all, two supernatural beings, Morozko and Medved, see powerful opportunities in Vasya's gifts. And while Vasya tries to ward off Medved's nefarious grasp on her village, political rumblings from Moscow threaten their status quo, and the villagers become wary of Vasya's inexplicable talents and boldness. In a lush narrative with the cadence of a fairy tale, Arden weaves an immersive, earthy story of folk magic, faith, and hubris, peopled with vivid, dynamic characters, particularly clever, brave Vasya, who outsmarts men and demons alike to save her family. This beautifully written, auspicious first novel is utterly bewitching.--Sarah Hunter
YA: With a teen heroine and fairy-tale atmosphere, this could have easily been published as YA. Teen fans of literary fairy tales will be enchanted. SH.
Bone & Bread. By Saleema Nawaz. Nov. 2016.456p. Anansi, paper, $16.95 (9781770890091).
With an elegance and fluidity of prose rare in first novels, Canadian writer Nawaz presents a masterful examination of the ties that bind people together and the quiet endurance required for sustaining those bonds through the countless travails of life and death. Beena remains bereaved, but she is attempting to preserve the burgeoning relationships that have allowed her to cope with the death of her sister, Sadhana. In the wake of this tragedy, Beena reflects on their childhood together after the death of their parents, remembering the tumultuous nature of their sisterhood and the many struggles that led to their final fight. Mingled grief and guilt lead Beena to return to her sister's Montreal apartment to investigate what exactly went on during Sadhana's last days and uncover the truth behind her death. Poignant, engrossing, and tender, Nawaz's work explores the lifelong attempt to protect those we love and how we learn to rally for those dear to us.--Caitlin Brown
The Butcher's Hook. By Janet Ellis. Jan. 2017. 368p. Pegasus, $24.95 (9781681773117).
In this macabre love story, Anne Jaccob is a young woman from a wealthy family in Georgian London. Though she lives a comfortable life, she receives no love from her cold father, and her mother has been wasting away for years. Not only that, but Anne has been promised to an oily, self-absorbed man. Longing for love and an escape from her home, Anne is instantly smitten by the butcher's boy, Fub, when he makes a delivery to the home. She embarks on a whirlwind love affair, which she must keep secret, and there are no lengths that she won't go to in order to protect it, including cold-blooded murder. Still, readers won't suspect the story's dark turn, which flips the usual tropes on their heads and makes for a pleasantly surprising read. Ellis' debut is at times awkwardly paced, and characters are generally unlikable and melodramatic. Fans of the setting, with plenty of sex and violence thrown in, will enjoy the novelty of this book that reads like a Tim Burton film.--Emily Brock
The Dispossessed. By Szilard Borbely. Nov. 2016. 304p. illus. HarperPerennial, paper, $15.99 (9780062364081).
Well-known poet Borbely uses his lyrical talent to illuminate the suffering and deep-seated poverty in a tiny Hungarian village in the 1960s, a time when politics and communism in the region changed difficult lives to impossible. The unnamed child narrator, whose drunken father is of Jewish descent and whose family is officially Greek Catholic (another unpopular religion in a Calvinist village), describes his life as a fearful outcast who, with his sister, does most of the chores and spends inordinate amounts of time keeping his mother from jumping into the well. The narrator doesn't shy away from the peasants' coarse humor, sexual aberrations, and cruelty to animals, nor the filth and excrement that surround them and serve as metaphors for their lives. While the short declarative sentences may seem somewhat repetitious, every page is laden with significance, and though some readers may not enjoy the education Borbely gives them, most will find much to ponder in this moving literary novel that compares favorably to both Elie Wiesel's Night (1960) and Philip Hensher's Scenes from Early Life (2013) for their disturbingly clear descriptions and autobiographical nature. Borbely died in 2014. --Jen Baker
Fever Dream. By Samanta Schweblin. Tr. by Megan McDowell. Jan. 2017. 192p. Riverhead, $25 (9780399184598).
Schweblin's first novel tells a frenetic, unnerving tale. A young mother, Amanda, is afflicted by a sudden illness and accepts that death is imminent. As she waits in her hospital bed, she hears the hovering voice of a young boy, David, who guides her as she recounts the events leading to her current dire situation. After arriving at a rural vacation home with her daughter, Nina, Amanda strikes up a friendship with their alluring neighbor, Carla, a local who is revealed to be David's mother. Carla shares with Amanda an unusual story about her son and her efforts to save him after he was poisoned. Amanda, at first dubious, becomes increasingly troubled by both mother and son and makes plans to cut their vacation short and return home. But things go awry when Amanda decides to bid Carla farewell. Schweblin's sparse narrative, both familiar and mysterious, quickly grows in intensity as the hazy whispers of self-doubt and death itself descend. A thought-provoking story that provides ample opportunity for readers to grapple with its unanswered questions. --Leah Strauss
First Light. By Bill Rancic. Nov. 2016. 320p. Putnam, $26 (9781101982273).
Entrepreneur and reality-TV star Rancic, author of the best-selling You're Hired: How to Succeed in Business and Life (2004), presents a captivating and harrowing debut novel. After doing damage control for a recent oil spill, the Petrol team members are more than ready to leave the darkness of Barrow, Alaska. Kerry Egan and Daniel Albrecht are especially excited to return to Chicago to plan their wedding and celebrate the holidays. But during their flight home, something goes terribly wrong. Stranded in the Yukon Territory after their plane crashes during a storm, Kerry, Daniel, and other survivors must endure the unforgiving conditions of the Canadian wilderness. Kerry and Phil Velez, another Petrol employee, are gravely injured during the crash. As the only one with survival experience, Daniel is forced to make difficult decisions to save the woman he loves and ensure that everyone has a chance of being rescued. First Light is, at its core, a story of love and family, told within an engrossing page-turner about endurance and hope.--Patricia Smith
The Futures. By Anna Pitoniak. Jan. 2017.320p. Little, Brown/Lee Boudreaux, $26 (9780316354172); e-book, $12.99 (9780316354189).
Recent college grads Julia and Evan, who alternate chapters narrating Pitoniak's debut, have just traded New Haven for New York. Without any distinct post-college plans, Julia thinks moving in with Evan is as good as anything else. Evan, on the other hand, has landed a coveted spot at a highly respected hedge fund, one of the few, he'll soon learn, that's safe in the about-to-happen 2008 market crash. Quickly, Evan is working around the clock, attracting the attention of a boss whose elusive praise is wildly sought-after by his competitive colleagues. Julia, working "only" normal hours, is lonely and disappointed, if not surprised, by how quickly playing house has become anything but fun. When Evan gets involved in a deal that he suspects, then knows, isn't above-board, and Julia seeks fun and comfort elsewhere, Pitoniak keeps the pace moving at a steady clip. Through Julia, preppy, privileged, depressive, and Evan, a Canadian country boy running from his roots, Pitoniak's well plotted, character-driven, interior-focused novel captures the knowable angst of the unknowable possibilities of modern young adulthood.--Annie Bostrom
YA/M: Julia and Evan an barely older than the teenagers who might like a peek at the abruptly adult lives they lead after college. AB.
Hindsight. By Mindy Tarquini. Nov. 2016. 320p. SparkPress, paper, $16.95 (9781943006014); e-book, $9.95 (9781943006021).
Eugenia knows where she has been all too well; she is not sure where she is going to end up. Thirty-three years old and living with her mother in South Philly, Eugenia has the unique ability to remember all of her past lives, but she is only interested in what her as-yet-unknown future holds. She thinks her current life is too easy, and she is craving more, when she meets Friedrich, a man who shares her strange talent, as his concentration-camp tattoo from a past life proves. The two form an unlikely friendship that always dances around more, and suddenly Eugenia's life is exciting. Instead of wishing for something better in her next life, she is engaged in the present, able to tackle things she never thought possible and in sight of the life she has always wanted, this time around. Tarquini charms her audience with heady wit and laugh-out-loud humor, especially where Eugenia's hilarious Italian American family is concerned. This is a fast-reading, enjoyable journey through past and present that many readers will enjoy.--Carissa Chesanek
* History of Wolves. By Emily Fridlund. Jan. 2017. 288p. Atlantic Monthly, $25 (97808021258731.
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Fraught with foreboding, Fridlund's first novel is the story of 14-year-old Linda, who lives with her erstwhile cult-member parents in a cabin in the northern Minnesota woods. When new neighbors, the Gardners, move into their summer cottage across the lake, Linda becomes babysitter for their five-year-old son and an increasingly large presence in their lives--and they in hers. In the meantime, her new history teacher, Mr. Grierson, has been found to possess child pornography and is fired, but not before he has an alleged affair with one of Linda's classmates, the beautiful Lily with whom Linda is fascinated. The novel moves backward and forward in time to good effect, showing us the enigmatic adult Linda will become. The isolated setting reinforces a theme of loneliness that pervades the book and lends it an often bleak, even desolate, air that reinforces the uncertain, nagging knowledge that something is wrong with the Gardners. The writing is beautiful throughout ("the sun broke over the treetops, turning every surface into a flat knife of light"; a man is stubborn "like a stain") and is a triumph of tone and attitude. Lovers of character-driven literary fiction will embrace this one.--Michael Cart
YA/M: Older teens who enjoy literary fiction will he engaged and intrigued by this novel's richly realized themes of loneliness and the urgent desire to belong. MC.
* I Liked My Life. By Abby Fabiaschi. Jan. 2017.272p. St. Martin's, $25.99 (9781250084873).
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Maddy's husband, Brady, and their teenage daughter, Eve, have been struggling after Maddy's suicide. Wanting to help her shattered family move on without her, Maddy hovers from the beyond, seeking the right woman to take her place. She finds the perfect person to help Brady and Eve move past their loss in Rory, an elementary teacher, and she plants thoughts in their heads to bring Rory and her family together. But Rory has experienced her own loss and may be just as much in need of learning to live again as Brady and Eve are. Fabiaschi excels at depicting the confusion Eve and Brady experience as they desperately try to reconcile their Maddy with the one who committed suicide. Excerpts from Maddy's journal and multiple narrators add to the complexity of Maddy's character as well as the layers of strained relationship history between Brady and Eve. Readers will be enveloped by the emotional impact of Fabiaschi's writing. Warm and hopeful, this marvelous debut stands next to novels from Catherine McKenzie and Carolyn Parkhurst in taking the reader on the emotional rides that define marriage and family.--Tracy Babiasz
* Lincoln in the Bardo. By George Saunders. Jan. 2017.368p. Random, $28 (9780812995343).
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Even though Saunders (Tenth of December, 2013), the much-heralded author of distinctively inventive short stories, anchors his first novel to a historical moment--the death of President Abraham Lincoln's young son, Willie, in February 1862--this is most emphatically not a conventional work of historical fiction. The surreal action takes place in a cemetery, and most of the expressive, hectic characters are dead, caught in the bardo, the mysterious transitional state following death and preceding rebirth, heaven, or hell. Their vivid narration resembles a play, or a prose variation on Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology (1915), as they tell their stories, which range from the gleefully ribald to the tragic in tales embodying the dire conflicts underlying the then-raging Civil War. On pages laddered with brilliantly "curated" quotes from books and historical documents (most actual, some concocted), Saunders cannily sets the stage for Lincoln's true-life, late-night visits to the crypt, where he cradles his son's body--scenes of epic sorrow turned grotesque by the morphing spirits' frantic reactions. Saunders creates a provocative dissonance between his exceptionally compassionate insights into the human condition and Lincoln's personal and presidential crises and this macabre carnival of the dead, a wild and wily improvisation on the bardo that mirrors, by turns, the ambience of Hieronymus Bosch and Tim Burton. A boldly imagined, exquisitely sensitive, sharply funny, and utterly unnerving historical and metaphysical drama.--Donna Seaman
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The buzz is loud and will continue to be so when literary star Saunders goes on a national author tour supported by an all-platform media blitz.
* Marlena. By Julie Buntin. Apr. 2017. 288p. Holt, $26 (9781627797641).
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In Buntin's vivid debut, Cath, now a New York City public librarian in her thirties, tells the story of the friendship that changed her forever. Fifteen and stinging from her parents' recent divorce, Cath has already decided that she'll be different in freezing, rugged Silver Lake, Michigan, from the nerdy, do-gooder "Cathy" she was back in Pontiac. On cue, wild, beautiful, unpredictable Marlena, her new neighbor, appears as Cath, her mother, and brother pull up to the tiny home that's apparently theirs. Cath is suddenly and completely drawn to Marlena: ethereal though chemically fueled, brilliant but reckless, so comforting when she's not angry or, worse, too honest. An early revelation that Marlena will soon die increases the suspense. Cath, an aggressively truant smoker in her new identity, knows that Marlenas dad is up to no good in his rail car deep in the woods, that he's cooking a better version of the meth Marlena's boyfriend makes and sells, and Marlena's constant pill-popping isn't nothing, but this friendship and the life that comes with it are closer to belonging than Cath has ever felt. Though Cath tells her story in flashbacks, Buntin's prose is emotional and immediate, and the interior lives she draws of young women and obsessive best friends are Ferrante-esque.--Annie Bostrom
YA/M: This novel is full of first times and difficult things, and the teens who are ready for them will recognize Cath and Marlena. AB.
Our Little Secret. By Jenna Ellis. Oct. 2016.416p. IPG/Pan Macmillan, paper, $14.95 (9781447266785).
Scanning classified ads while whiling away the minutes at her dead-end job, wrangling kids at the Manchester FunPlex Dome, Sophie Henshaw is intrigued by a listing for an "articulate, well-mannered English girl" to work for a family in upstate New York. At 22, her life isn't terrible, and she and her longtime boyfriend have an amazing sex life--but not much else. She's ready to shake things up. Quickly, after interviewing for the job on video, she's flown business class to New York, and everything only gets more luxurious from there. Edward and Marnie Parker's seemingly endless, hyperprivate house is teched-up and glitzed-out, and, of course, they're both interesting--and superhot. But where are those kids Sophie thought she was going to nanny? And is it just her, or is there a lot of sexual tension in here? Figuring out that something's up with the Parkers, and that Sophie's hire wasn't exactly what it seemed, isn't rocket science, but plot twists take a limo-length backseat to erotica here. And first-time novelist Ellis cleverly leaves the ending open for a sequel.--Annie Bostrom
* The Patriots. By Sana Krasikov. Jan. 2017. 560p. Spiegel & Grau, $28 (9780385524414).
Krasikov's short story collection, One More Year (2008), garnered a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 award and the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. Now her fluency in the complex interactions between Russia and America shapes her first novel, an involving, suspenseful, and astute cross-cultural saga. Idealistic and impetuous Brooklynite Florence Fein lands a job with the Soviet Trade Mission. She falls for a worldly Russian engineer, precipitating her reckless 1934 voyage to the Soviet Union, where her naivete and brashness both endanger and empower her as she navigates many-pronged tyranny, anti-Semitism, and vicious corruption. With scintillating language and transporting narrative command, Krasikov interlayers Florence's harrowing adventures with those of her son, Julian--who endured Soviet orphanages while she suffered in a Siberian labor camp and is currently embroiled in the race to drill for Arctic oil--and his floundering son, Lenny. As each generation struggles to find a home and an identity in both Russia and the U.S., Krasikov dramatizes hidden, shameful facets of history in which expat American Jews were betrayed by both countries. In a galvanizing tale of flawed and courageous protagonists, erotic and political passion, and harrowing struggles for survival, Krasikov masterfully and devastatingly exposes the "whole dark clockwork" of totalitarianism and asks what it means to be a hero, a patriot, a human being.--Donna Seaman
Pull Me Under. By Kelly Luce. Nov. 2016.272p. Farrar, $26 (9780374238582).
Luce follows her hit story collection, Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail (2013), with a debut novel about secret lives and selfhood. The daughter of a respected Japanese classical-music composer and an American woman who committed suicide, Rio Silvestri, a nurse, now lives in Boulder with her loving husband, teenage daughter, and a passion for long-distance running. When she receives a package containing artifacts and the news that her father has died, Rio faces the dark past she has spent her life running from: as a teenager living in Japan, she murdered a school bully and was sent to an institution for disturbed youth. Having hidden her shameful history from her family, Rio now travels alone to her father's funeral in Japan to face all that she left behind. Striking an unlikely friendship with her high-school English teacher, Rio explores ancient temples and forgotten memories on a journey to discover courage and renewed affection for those she loves. Understated yet emotionally gripping, Luce's novel is an intimate portrayal of one woman's search for identity.--Jonathan Fullmer
* The Standard Grand. By Jay Baron Nicorvo. Apr. 2017.368p. St. Martin's, $26.99 (9781250108944); e-book, $12.99 (9781250108951).
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Milt Wright, a widowed Vietnam vet, operates the Standard Grand, a once-thriving, luxurious Catskills resort, now a run-down sanctuary for homeless veterans suffering from PTSD. Dying from cancer, Milt is trying to keep the Grand afloat by maxing out his credit and finding a worthy successor. Enter Bellum Smith, gone AWOL just before her third deployment to Iraq and running from her abusive, ne'er-do-well husband. Milt takes her in, the only female at the Grand, and believes she may be the answer to his problems. Evangelina Canek represents a multinational corporation with designs on the land and hopes to save her job by cheaply acquiring the property and turning a quick profit, since the Grand is sitting on a massive shale formation. With sentences that flow like water down a mountain, Nicorvo's muscular and energetic prose will stun readers with its poignancy, while providing a punch to the solar plexus. Whip-smart dialogue and keen emotional insight bring a ragtag, damaged, but lovable cast of characters to life. Ultimately, it is Nicorvo's depiction of the deep psychological scars soldiers bring home that will keep this exceptional first novel in the hearts and minds of readers. Alongside Billy Lynn's Long, Halftime Walk (2012) and Yellow Birds (2012), The Standard Grand is an important and deeply human contribution to the national conversation.--Bill Kelly
* The Strays. By Emily Bitto. Jan. 2017.256p. Twelve, $26 (9781455537723).
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A note from an old friend sparks Lily's memory, and suddenly it's the 1930s again in Melbourne. Lily is nine, first meeting Eva, who will become her best friend. Eva's well-known artist father, Evan, is always busy painting, Lily learns, while Eva's beautiful mother, Helena, is always busy ... being glamorous. Lily, fast becoming a witness to all this, is fascinated by the family's bohemian existence, their house always filled with other artists, some of whom actually live there in a kind of chaotic, de facto artist colony calling itself the Melbourne Modern Art Group. With the adults either occupied or careless, Eva and her two sisters are left on their own--strays, their mother calls them, including Lily in their number, to Lily's delight. But what seems like a halcyon time changes suddenly when something nearly unimaginable happens, and Lily is left alone and friendless. Soon thereafter the novel flashes forward some 30 years as past and present come together in a melancholy denouement. Winner of Australia's Stella Prize, Bitto's novel is a haunting evocation of life-changing friendship. Stylishly written (an elegant woman is "pale and long and light, like a taper"), The Strays is a marvel of setting and characterization, re-creating a time of artistic revolution and personal revelation. Memorable and moving, this is a novel not to be missed.--Michael Cart
The Waiting Room. By Leah Kaminsky. Nov. 2016.304p. HarperPerennial, paper, $15.99 (9780062490476).
Australian physician and writer Kaminisky's first novel centers on Dina, who finds her everyday life as a doctor in Haifa, Israel, intertwined with both her family's past and collective Jewish history. Raised in Australia by Holocaust-survivor parents, she reaches Israel as an adult and experiences an immediate sense of belonging. However, even as she meets and marries Eitan, has a child, and settles down, she feels an inner tug-of-war as she longs to return to Melbourne, away from the relentless sense of impending disaster. Kaminsky uses the events of one day as this busy mother and doctor runs from home to school to office and deals with errands to dramatize what it means to live under constant threat. But she also reminds us that life is the same everywhere, even in places of high-wire stress, as we face such realities as a strained marriage and the struggle to make time to be with one's child. Kaminsky brings Dina into sharp focus, while her ghostly mother serves as a strong secondary character, in order to vividly personalize stark news reports.--Shoba Viswanathan
* A Word for Love. By Emily Robbins. Jan. 2017. 304p. Riverhead, $27 (9781594633584).
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Bea has seen firsthand that real life can mirror fiction. An American student of Arabic in an unnamed Middle Eastern country that is on the verge of revolution, Bea is on a mission to get her hands on the world-famous "astonishing text," a legendary story of star-crossed lovers Qais and Leila and the good Samaritan who kept their ill-fated adventures alive. In her host family's small home, however, Bea is witness to two life-changing events that unfold along parallel tracks: an enduring, illicit romance between Nisrine, the Indonesian housemaid, and Adel, a young policeman stationed next door; and the host family's patriarch's increasing involvement in political dissent, actions that might carry serious consequences. The themes here seem ripe for melodrama, but Robbins' promising debut steers clear of cloying sentimentality even if at times the similarities between Bea and the good Samaritan of lore feel forced. Still, Bea is a winning choice as a narrator, lending the story vulnerability and authenticity, especially because she is such an empathetic, and often helpless, spectator. With an impressive economy of words, Robbins, formerly a Fulbright Fellow in Syria, tells a story that proves that themes of love, loss, and freedom truly can transcend borders and time.--Poornima Apte
YA/M: Intelligent and kind Bea might intrigue YAs, who will be curious to learn more about her path as a young study-abroad student. PA.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Spotlight on first novels." Booklist, 15 Oct. 2016, p. 28+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA468771279&it=r&asid=7db3930eadd5c8069af840369ddaacba. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A468771279
Katherine Arden: THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE
(Oct. 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Katherine Arden THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE Del Rey/Ballantine (Adult Fiction) 27.00 ISBN: 978-1-101-88593-2
Arden’s supple, sumptuous first novel transports the reader to a version of medieval Russia where history and myth coexist.In a village in the northern woods where her father is the overlord, Vasya, a girl who has inherited her royal grandmother’s understanding of magic and the spirits that inhabit the everyday world, is born to a mother who dies in childhood. Raised by a kind father, an anxious and spiteful stepmother, a wise nurse, and four older siblings, the feisty and near-feral girl—“too tall, skinny as a weasel, feet and face like a frog”—learns to talk with horses and befriends the household and forest spirits that live in and around the village. These, say the handsome young priest who has been exiled to serve their household, are demons and deserve to be exorcised. The battle between Vasya and driven Konstantin, who spends his free time painting icons, fuels the plot, as does the presence of two of the old gods, who represent death and fear. Arden has obviously immersed herself in Russian history and culture, but as a consummate storyteller, she never lets the details of place and time get in the way of a compelling and neatly structured narrative. Her main story, which has the unmistakable shape of an original fairy tale, is grounded in the realities of daily life in the time period, where the top of a large stove serves as a bed for the elderly and the ill and the dining hall of the Grand Prince of Moscow reeks of “mead and dogs, dust and humanity.” Even minor characters are given their own sets of longings and fears and impact the trajectory of the story. Arden has shaped a world that neatly straddles the seen and the unseen, where readers will hear echoes of stories from childhood while recognizing the imagination that has transformed old material into something fresh.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Katherine Arden: THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466551462&it=r&asid=c29c6dcfad3cef075a0e9709da2f9374. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466551462
The Bear and the Nightingale
263.27 (July 4, 2016): p46.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
* The Bear and the Nightingale
Katherine Arden. Del Rey, $27 (336p) ISBN 978-1-101-88593-2
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Arden's debut is an earthy, beautifully written love letter to Russian folklore, with an irresistible heroine who wants only to be free of the bonds placed on her gender and claim her own fate in 14th-century Russia. Vasilisa "Vasya" Petrovna's mother, Marina, died while giving birth to her. Her father, Pyotr Vladimirovich, loves her; he also resents her for his beloved wife's death. But Marina made Pyotr promise to take good care of Vasya, saying that she was special, and indeed she is. While her father and brothers seek marriage arrangements among royalty in Moscow, Vasya, now a teenager, refuses to be married off; instead she wanders the verdant woods of her father's rural estate, communing with spirits of home, wood, and water. When a young, arrogant priest is sent to her village, the people turn away from their old ways, and the spirits that keep them safe begin to fade. It's up to Vasya to protect them, but her father marries Anna, the daughter of Grand Prince Ivan II, who believes the wood spirits are demons and wants to kill Vasya or confine her to a convent as punishment for consorting with them. As a fierce winter storm rages, Vasya must save her family while embracing the magic that lives inside her. The stunning prose ("The blood flung itself out to Vasya's skin until she could feel every stirring in the air") forms a fully immersive, unusual, and exciting fairy tale that will enchant readers from the first page. Agent: Raid Lucas, Janklow and Nesbit. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Bear and the Nightingale." Publishers Weekly, 4 July 2016, p. 46. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA457302884&it=r&asid=05176a1a62135aa6dcd0e744d7c70c49. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A457302884
'The Bear And The Nightingale' Is A Rich Winter's Tale
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January 22, 201710:00 AM ET
Amal El-Mohtar
The Bear and the Nightingale
The Bear and the Nightingale
by Katherine Arden
Hardcover, 320 pages
purchase
I read this book of winter nights and northern forests at the turn of the year; snow swirled, ice glazed the trees and bent bare branches low. I'm writing the review now in the kind of unseasonable thaw that makes one want to grab climate change denial by the ear and rub its face in the slush. But I'm only the more grateful for The Bear and the Nightingale in consequence: I love winter with all my December-born Canadian heart, and I love stories that make me feel the full mythic majesty of it even when the weather's wounded and limping into spring.
Vasilisa Petrovna is the youngest child of a wealthy boyar in the north of Russia, and heir to old magic: Her grandmother stepped out of fairy tale into marriage with a prince, and her mother died to give birth to her and the enchantment promised by her lineage. Sure enough, Vasya can see spirits, the creatures of hearth, stable, lake and woods who populate the landscape as much as humans do. She's alone in this, and keeps it secret — until her father remarries. Then Vasya realizes her new stepmother can see the spirits as well, but is terrified of them, calls them demons, and forbids Vasya any communion with them. But something is waking in the woods, more terrible, threatening and hungry than the Winter King himself, and it's coming for Vasya and all she holds dear.
There was a great deal to love in this book. Arden's weaving of folklore and fairy tale with a very solid evocation of feudal Russia is beautiful and deft. As Nicola Griffith does in Hild, Arden fills in the gaps of the historical record by drawing on a very tactile experience of the present-day landscape — we may not know everything about the day to day life of a medieval Russian farmer, but we do know the bite of cold in the fingertips, or the way snow settles on pine. Arden's prose, especially in the first third of the book, has the breathtaking insight of poetry: "The years slipped by like leaves," she writes, and "the clouds lay like wet wool above the trees."
There was a great deal to love in this book. Arden's weaving of folklore and fairy tale with a very solid evocation of feudal Russia is beautiful and deft.
Amal El-Mohtar
I was equally delighted by her representation of family. Vasya has brothers and sisters who all love each other even as they tease and fight, a devoted father and a kind grandmotherly nurse who tells stories. The work of a family — the work, ultimately, of surviving winter year on year — is lovingly detailed and deeply comforting to dwell in. Whenever I reached for the book it was with the pleasant anticipation of settling into an experience.
Unfortunately, the latter parts of The Bear and the Nightingale shear away much of what I loved about its beginning and middle. Some of this looks like the required structural work of setting up sequels — sequestering important characters elsewhere and never revisiting them — but some of it is unnecessary hewing to the most common shape of fantasy stories. Ultimately, it felt like a collection of beautiful plot coupons the book refused to cash in. There seems absolutely no reason, in the story as Arden develops it — or in the fairy tales on which she draws — for an epic battle to resolve with an unsatisfying twist, marked here and there with erratic and dismaying execution of fairy tale justice. A story that shines in the gorgeous unity it manages to make of history and folklore concludes with a mishmash of affect and style, and an ending that undercuts much of its former power.
Also dismaying is Arden's afterword, where she explains her Russian transliteration choices in what I can only describe as unnecessary and unfortunate defensiveness. I went from interest in and gratitude for an explanatory note — being completely unfamiliar with Russian — to perplexed annoyance at Arden's imagined "hand-wringing of readers" — which made her stated aim of retaining "a bit of exotic flavor" in Russian names ring sour, especially after a book that had made me feel so thoroughly at home.
These problems aside, The Bear and the Nightingale is a pleasure to spend time with. A rich and elegant debut, at its best it makes a season of Russian fairy tales and grows wonderful characters from them like wild fruit.
Amal El-Mohtar is the author of The Honey Month and the editor of Goblin Fruit, an online poetry magazine.