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My Mother Says
Regular price $17.99 Save $-17.99The narrator’s long-term girlfriend has just broken things off, forcing her to move back in with her father, a Pink Floyd–loving priest. While she desperately tries to convince her girlfriend to reconsider, the rest of the world bombards her with advice: from her childhood friend Mulle to her kindly therapist to her overbearing mother and card-playing father. Bumbling through the fog of disillusionment, the narrator gives herself permission to grieve, philosophize, and be generally outrageous until at last she sees a light at the end of the tunnel. My Mother Says is a compendium of conversations between people who talk past one another in a universe of misplaced good intentions. In this whirlwind of memories, confessions, temper tantrums, and declarations of love Pilgaard’s sheer affection for her characters turns the pain of a broken heart into a heartwarming comedy of errors.
The Land of Short Sentences
Regular price $18.99 Save $-18.99A young mother follows her partner to a rural community in West Jutland, Denmark, where he teaches at the local school for adult education. Isolated, she is forced to find her way in a bewildering community and in the inscrutable conversational forms of the local population.
A young woman relocates to an outlying community in West Jutland, Denmark, and is forced to find her way, not only in the bewildering environment of the residential Folk High School, where her partner has been hired to teach, but also in the inscrutable conversational forms of the local population. And on top of it all, there’s the small matter of juggling her roles as mother to a newborn baby and advice columnist in the local newspaper. In this understated and hilarious novel, Stine Pilgaard conjures a tale of venturing into new and uncharted land, of human relationships, dilemmas, and the ways and byways of social intercourse.October Child
Regular price $16.99 Save $-16.99From 2013 to 2017, Linda Boström Knausgård was periodically confined to a psychiatric ward and subjected to electroconvulsive therapy, resulting in the loss of memories. This is the story of her struggle against mental illness and isolation
"(Boström Knausgård's) first openly autobiographical book becomes an act of self-examination powerful enough to match if not surpass those of her ex-husband’s."—The Guardian
From 2013 to 2017, Linda Boström Knausgård was periodically interned in a psychiatric ward where she was subjected to electroconvulsive therapy. As the treatments at this “factory” progressed, the writer’s memories began to disappear. What good is a writer without her memory? This book, based on the author’s experiences, is an eloquent and profound attempt to hold on to the past, to create a story, to make sense, and to keep alive ties to family, friends, and even oneself. Moments from childhood, youth, marriage, parenting, and divorce flicker across the pages of October Child. This is the story of one woman’s struggle against mental illness and isolation. It is a raw testimony of how writing can preserve and heal.
We and Me
Regular price $17.99 Save $-17.99"Saskia de Coster’s We and Me is a great dark beauty, and simultaneously, a true original and a reminder of why that endangered species, the novel, remains essential: no other narrative form is so expansive, so complex, so human, and so true." —Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours
“We and Me is a novel that will haunt me for a long time. Excellent and unforgettable.” —Herman Koch, author of The Dinner
In this spellbinding novel, which has been compared to the work of Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers, and Jeffrey Eugenides, Saskia de Coster provides a uniquely European take on the tradition of "The Great American Novel." With the family unit and some of life’s most pressing questions at its center, the award-winning We and Me paints a captivatingly haunting picture of bourgeois family life.
Written from several different perspectives, We and Me covers the time period between 1980 and 2013 and focuses on the aristocratic Vandersanden family. Set in their opulent private estate located atop a mountain, neuroses, claustrophobia, scandal and rebellion run rife. At the heart of the family and the novel is Sarah, whose coming of age is both daringly and sensitively explored in de Coster’s skillful prose.
With her characteristically incisive approach, de Coster excavates the nuanced underbelly of human emotions with humor, understanding, and a lightness of touch. We and Me is a remarkable and compelling tale by one of the greatest Belgian writers of our time.
A Carnival of Atrocities
Regular price $19.99 Save $-19.99The residents of a desolate town nestled in the Ecuadorian Andes are forced to reckon with the legend of Mildred, a girl wronged by the town years ago
Cocuán, a desolate town nestled between the hot jungle and the frigid Andes, is about to slip away from memory. This is where Mildred was born, and where everything she had—her animals, her home, her lands—was taken from her after her mother’s death. Years later, a series of strange events, disappearances, and outbursts of collective delirium will force its residents to reckon with the legend of old Mildred. Once again, they will feel the shadow of death that has hung over the town ever since she was wronged. The voices of nine characters—Mildred, Ezequiel, Agustina, Manzi, Carmen, Víctor, Baltasar, Hermosina, and Filatelio—tell us of the past and present of that doomed place and Mildred's fate. Natalia García Freire’s vivid language blurs the lines between dreams and reality and transports the reader to the hypnotic Andean universe of Ecuador.