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WORK TITLE: Stone Baby
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1980
WEBSITE: https://www.michellesacksauthor.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: South African
Lives in Europe.
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1980, in South Africa; immigrated to Switzerland.
EDUCATION:University of Cape Town, M.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
AWARDS:Shortlisted twice for South African PEN Literary Award; shortlisted for Commonwealth Short Story Prize, 2014.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Michelle Sacks is a novelist and author of short fiction. Born in South Africa, she earned a master’s degree in literature and film at the University of Cape Town. She has been nominated for several literary awards, including the South African PEN Literary Award and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She makes her home in Switzerland.
Stone Baby
Sacks’s first book, Stone Baby, is a collection of twelve short stories that explore themes of displacement and seeking. Set in a wide array of places, including South Africa, Morocco, Germany, and India, the stories focus on characters who are in flight–either to escape something or to find something. Kingdom, protagonist of the book’s first story, has fled war to find a new life in South Africa. But he has not entirely escaped violence, having found work as an assassin. Another story features an elderly man who escaped his Nazi past to live under a false identity in Cape Town. “Rich Man Dreams” is set in Dubai, where enslaved men brought over from poor Asian countries are put to work building a city of dazzling luxury. In “Honor Life Long with Tears” men embarrassed by their unspeakable sexual proclivities hope to find some sort of relief in the decadent sexual culture of Berlin; in other stories, comfortable Europeans use global travel as a means of self-discovery, but feel guilty when they find themselves appalled by the poverty, filth, and dysfunctionality they encounter in the undeveloped countries they had envisioned as spiritual and pure.
As a writer for Kirkus Reviews observed, the political is always present in these stories, which are loosely connected in a tenuous web that sometimes seems “forced and unnecessary.” Even so, the reviewer concluded that the book “as a whole grants far-reaching insight into issues of our world.”
You Were Made for This
You Were Made for This, Sacks’s debut novel, tells the story of a young family that moves from Brooklyn to Sweden. But what begins as a cozy tale of domestic happiness soon turns much darker, as Sacks exposes the realities of obsession, deception, betrayal, jealousy, and treachery. Sam, an anthropology professor at Columbia, and his wife Merry, a set designer, are thrilled to learn that Sam’s step-grandmother has left him her cottage in the Swedish countryside. Expecting their first child, they imagine that Sweden will be the perfect place to raise their family, and they unhesitatingly set off for Europe, eager to settle down among pristine lakes and woods and friendly neighbor folk. Things go well at first. Merry grows vegetables in the garden, bakes comfy treats, and cares for baby Conor. Sam, meanwhile, works to establish himself in a new career as a documentary filmmaker.
But Merry does not actually enjoy cooking, canning, housework, or endless child care, no matter how much her husband insists this life is perfect for her. In fact, she feels no maternal bond with her infant son, and resents Sam’s expectation that she will continue to perform these tasks with cheerful lack of complaint. For his part, Sam is keeping secrets from his wife. Not only is she unaware that he had been fired from his teaching job because of inappropriate sexual relationships with his students; she also does not realize that he routinely lies to her about how he is spending his days away from the house.
The discontent simmering below the surface of the couple’s seemingly idyllic life comes to the boiling point when Merry’s glamorous friend Frank comes to visit. Frank, however, has her own hidden problems, and her presence fails to offer any solace. In fact, it may just make matters worse. Though she purports to be Merry’s best friend, Frank is hypercompetitive and envious of Merry’s life, and acts in ways that become toxic. The plot climaxes in a shocking tragedy that, as a writer for Kirkus Reviews pointed out, amplifies the theme that “evil thrives in even the most ideal of settings.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly described You Were Made for This as a “haunting” novel that is deeply engaging despite the fact that readers are unlikely to feel sympathy for any of its characters. As the reviewer observed, “unblinking look at beautiful people with ugly secrets has the voyeuristic fascination of a Bergman film.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2017, review of Stone Baby; April 15, 2018, review of You Were Made for This.
Publishers Weekly, February 26, 2018, review of You Were Made for This, p. 63.
ONLINE
Michelle Sacks Website, https://www.michellesacksauthor.com (May 13, 2018).
RG, http://rgmags.com/ (May 13, 2018), Robyn Bardgette, review of You Were made for This.
Michelle Sacks is the author of the short story collection Stone Baby (December 2017) and the novel You Were Made For This (June 2018).
Michelle Sacks was born in South Africa. She holds an MA in Literature and Film from the University of Cape Town, and has been shortlisted twice for the South African PEN Literary Award, as well as the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
Her debut collection of stories, Stone Baby, was published by Northwestern University Press in 2017, and her first novel, You Were Made for This, will follow in Summer 2018 from Little, Brown.
She currently lives in Switzerland.
Sacks, Michelle: YOU WERE MADE FOR THIS
Kirkus Reviews. (Apr. 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Sacks, Michelle YOU WERE MADE FOR THIS Little, Brown (Adult Fiction) $27.00 6, 19 ISBN: 978-0-316-47540-2
A young family moves to Sweden to pursue an idyllic life in Sacks' debut novel.
When Sam inherits a cottage from his stepgrandmother, he and his pregnant wife barely hesitate but pack up their lives in Brooklyn and move, excited to raise their child in this place of ice-cold lakes and dappled sunlight. Merry spends her days picking fresh produce from the garden and baking homemade treats, taking baby Conor for long outings in the woods, and Sam works to begin a new career in documentary film. But from the very beginning of the novel, as both characters take turns narrating the story, it's clear there's something rotten at the core of this perfection. When Merry's best friend from childhood, Frank, comes for a visit, she can immediately see the ugliness beneath this facade. She knows Merry too well, knows her history of slipping from persona to persona, and she can see Sam for what he is. But Frank has her own secrets, and as her voice joins the others in narrating the story, it becomes clear that she's suffering for her own sins and may not be able--or willing--to save anyone. Sacks has crafted a beguiling and frightening modern fairy tale, an Eden story that presents an Adam and Eve who were never innocent and who try to make over the world on their own terms only to find that evil thrives even in the most ideal of settings. Sacks' writing is at once lush in description but also spare; she uses the white space around the words to nurture a sense of dread.
Hard to read but also bewitchingly hard to put down--a fitting contradiction in a novel that explores the corruption at the heart of beauty.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Sacks, Michelle: YOU WERE MADE FOR THIS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534375227/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=963a3536. Accessed 16 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534375227
You Were Made for This
Publishers Weekly. 265.9 (Feb. 26, 2018): p63.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
You Were Made for This
Michelle Sacks. Little, Brown, $27 (352p) ISBN 978-0-316-47540-2
In Sacks's haunting first novel, Columbia University anthropology professor Sam Hurley and his set designer wife, Merry, ditch the comforts of Manhattan for a radically different lifestyle in an isolated cottage he has inherited in Sweden. Although the attractive couple and their baby, Conor, present an idyllic picture, deep-rooted problems threaten their relationship. Sam, who never told his wife that he was fired for inappropriate sexual relationships with students, lies to her daily about his activities. Merry chafes at the happy homemaker role Sam insists she was made for, but soldiers on through endless gardening, baking, canning, and tending an infant for whom she feels nothing. But the family loses its shaky equilibrium with a visit from Merry's glamorous lifelong frenemy, Frank, during which an unthinkable tragedy occurs. Though Sacks (Stone Baby, a story collection) doesn't give readers anyone to root for, her unblinking look at beautiful people with ugly secrets has the voyeuristic fascination of a Bergman film. Agent: Amy Berkower, Writers House. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"You Were Made for This." Publishers Weekly, 26 Feb. 2018, p. 63. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A530637407/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=7095bb21. Accessed 16 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A530637407
Sacks, Michelle: STONE BABY
Kirkus Reviews. (Sept. 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Sacks, Michelle STONE BABY TriQuarterly/Northwestern Univ. (Adult Fiction) $17.95 12, 15 ISBN: 978-0-8101-3615-1
The 12 stories in Sacks' debut collection zigzag across the globe, from Germany to India and Morocco, coming back frequently to South Africa.Each centers on a character who has arrived in a new locale to find something, to flee something, or both. In the opening piece we meet a man known only as Kingdom, who fled war and suffering to come to South Africa. He now works as a hit man. Also in Cape Town is Benjamin, the protagonist of "Wurden wir mit dem Leben belohnt oder bestraft?" He is a 96-year-old former Nazi soldier who lives under a false identity. Mostly, it would seem, his life is a self-inflicted punishment for what he did during the war. Politics form a constant backdrop that has and continues to influence these characters' lives in subtle and obvious ways. "Build, Break" grants us a clear view of the complex class system of post-apartheid South Africa, while "Rich Man Dreams" brings us to Dubai, a glittering place built on the backs of imported slaves. "We fill the ground like bricks," one of these enslaved men, Ali, notes. The stories intersect very loosely; a character might mention the name of a relative or loved one who will appear as a character, main or minor, later. The web is tenuous and, at times, forced and unnecessary. Structurally, a great deal of action happens in back story, revealing characters' past lives but weighing the stories down in exposition. Nonetheless, the collection as a whole grants far-reaching insight into issues of our world. A geopolitical collection of people with pasts.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Sacks, Michelle: STONE BABY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A504217559/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e9324d1e. Accessed 16 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A504217559
“You Were Made for This” by Michelle Sacks
BY ROBYN BARDGETTE MARCH 28, 2018
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HarperCollins
3 out of 5 stars
I had a lot of strong emotions reading this book. I was angry a lot of the time, and maybe for some that would warrant only one star. I mean, why would you want to be angry the entire time you’re reading a book? But just like the time I cried the entire time reading “The Light Between Oceans” (which also features moms and babies), I have a huge appetite for highly emotional books. So, if you don’t do well with emotionally charged topics (especially when children are involved), this probably isn’t a great choice. However, while I had some issues with this book, it was definitely an interesting story and particularly an interesting discussion on the perfection mothers either put on themselves or the things they feel like they are being judged on.
Merry and Sam live the perfect domesticated life in Sweden. They have a baby son named Conor, and Merry spends her days caring for her son and baking pies while her husband heads out to find work – you know the life all moms wish for (insert snarky face). But while the first scenes unfold like the gorgeous Swedish tableau of an Ikea commercial, it becomes clear that there are issues under the surface. When Merry’s childhood friend visits, the cracks start to show and the twisted nature of these people’s relationships is exposed.
There were a few holes in the story and I didn’t always feel like all of the details are fully fleshed out, particularly with the backstory. But along with controversial mothering choices, cheating husbands and backstabbing best friends, there’s all kinds of drama mixed in to this story. If you’re looking for a book that will create a lot of debate for your next book club or you’re like me and you have a tendency to throw your book across the room, this is the book for you.
“You Were made for This” will be published on June 19, 2018 and will be available for purchase at the Bermuda Bookstore.