Orange World and Other Stories

From the Pulitzer finalist and universally beloved author of the New York Times best sellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, a stunning new collection of short fiction that showcases her extraordinary gifts of language and imagination These nine exuberant, arrestingly vivid, emotionally precise stories present one of America's most gifted young writers at the top of her form. In "Bog Girl," a young man falls in love with a two-thousand-year-old girl that he's extracted from a mass of peat in a Floridian bog. In "The Bad Graft," a couple on a road trip stop in Joshua Tree National Park, where the spirit of a giant tree accidentally infects the young woman, their fates becoming permanently entangled. In the brilliant, hilarious "Orangeworld," a new mother desperate to ensure her daughter's health strikes a diabolical deal—she agrees to breastfeed the devil in exchange for his protection. In the collection's luminous title story, two opportunistic young women fleeing the depression strike out for new territory, and find themselves fighting for their lives. Survival stories, love stories, stories of surreal and magnificent transformation—this is haunting and beautiful work from a true modern master.