Separate Kingdoms

(Paperback)

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A work of daunting versatility and technical skill, the product of a writer absolutely at home in the language and working vigorously within both new and old forms. Michael Byers, author of Long for this World and The Coast of Good Intentions

From Pushcart Prize-winner Valerie Laken, author of Dream House, comes a riveting short story collection charting the divisions and collisions between cultures and nations, families and lovers, selves and others in the United States and Russia. In the tradition of Lydia Peelle, Barbara Johnson, and David Mitchell, Laken creates incisive and illuminating portraits of characters coping with loss, estrangement, and disability, confined by their circumstances to separate kingdoms of the heart.

Reviews

"[Laken] can turn out finely wrought observations on people's miseries and bad choices like she grew up at Chekhov's knee. But she brings some extra juice, both playful and serious, to these eight tales. . . . A national talent." -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Loss, temporary and permanent, physical and emotional, is the hard, gleaming thread tying together Laken's short-story collection. . . . An absorbing literary exploration of the geography of loss." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Vivid and evocative, these stories will appeal to readers of both popular and literary fiction." -- Library Journal

Author Bio

Dr. Sharon Moalem is an award-winning neurologist and evolutionary biologist, with a PhD in human physiology. His research brings evolution, genetics, biology, and medicine together to explain how the body works in new and fascinating ways. He and his work have been featured on CNN, in the New York Times, on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, on Today, and in magazines such as New Scientist, Elle, and Martha Stewart's Body + Soul. Dr. Moalem's first book was the New York Times bestseller Survival of the Sickest. He lives in New York City.