Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell
Portland, Ore. author Karen Russell has received many accolades over the past decade for her quirky and somewhat speculative fiction (namely, her 2011 novel Swamplandia! and her 2013 story collection Vampires in the Lemon Grove). Strange, haunting tales await those who pick up her most recent collection, Orange World and Other Stories (2019).
Orange World contains eight of Russell’s finely crafted short stories, each with a bizarre twist.
The title story (the last in the collection) features a mother who makes a very Faustian bargain with the devil to protect her baby.
In "The Prospectors," two women in the Depression who are trying to escape their hardship end up partying with the dead.
The highlight of the collection, though, is “Bog Girl: A Romance,” in which a teenage boy falls in love with a very well preserved 2,000-year-old teenage girl pulled from a bog in northern Europe (based on a few clues, this story is most likely set in the British Isles).
"The Tornado Auction” follows the misadventures of a family of storm breeders as they create and raise storms for every occasion.
Fans of the unusual in fiction will enjoy this collection.
Find Orange World at your local library.
