As Russell's imagination soars, so does our joy in reading this collection. They sprout after dark.' In many of the stories, characters confront their mortal limitations-some in physical cages, others metaphorically. White legs twining moonward, like swords of wheat. When Miles sees visions of his deceased sisters rising from a plot of grass, he observes that they are 'glowing taller and taller. 'Proving Up' is the tale of Miles Zegner, a young son of 19th-century homesteaders living on the Nebraska plains whose family is brought to vivid life by Russell's haunting language. In 'The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach, 1979,' 14-year-old Nal harbors a crush on his older brother's girlfriend, but Russell makes this otherwise ordinary plot her own by introducing a bird that leads Nal to a hidden stash of items that have influenced his past and promise to shape his future. Each story in Karen Russell's new book, Vampires in the Lemon Grove (Knopf), is more inventive than the last, juxtaposing mundane human experiences and profound questions about consciousness, love, and mortality, with a hint of the supernatural. A centuries-old vampire realizes he is too anxious to fly. Only the 17-year-old girl, Fila, who runs the produce stand at the lemon grove knows that Clyde is a vampire. If you liked Vampires in the Lemon Grove, try these: Treeborne by Caleb Johnson Published 2019 About this book Treeborne is a celebration and a reminder: of how the past gets mixed up in thoughts of the future of how home is a story as much as a place. An imprisoned girl transforms into a silkworm caterpillar, shooting thread from her fingertips. While the lemons work for a while, eventually the placating effects of the lemons wear off, and the couple realizes that they will have to search for something else.

They suck on the lemons to appease their unquenchable thirst. Eleven former presidents are reincarnated as horses. The main character and his wife, Magreb, are vampires who live in a lemon grove somewhere in the Italian countryside.

Vampires in the lemon grove characters