BEASTS & CHILDREN
by AMY PARKER
From the tense territory of a sagging, grand porch in Texas to a gated community in steamy Thailand to a lonely apartment in nondescript suburbia, these linked stories unwind the lives of three families as they navigate ever-shifting landscapes. Wry and sharp, dark and subversive, they keep watch as these characters make the choices that will change the course of their lives and run into each other in surprising, unforgettable ways.The Bowmans are declining Texas gentry, heirs to an airline fortune, surrounded by a patriarch's stuffed trophies and lost dreams. They will each be haunted by the past as they strive to escape its force. The Fosters are diplomats kids who might as well be orphans. Jill and Maizie grow up privileged amid poverty, powerless to change the lives of those around them and uncertain whether they have the power to change their own. The Guzmans have moved between Colombia and the United States for two generations, each seeking opportunity for the next, only to find that the American dream can be as crushing as it is elusive.Amy Parker's debut collectionconsiders--with an unfailingly observant eye--our failures and our successes, our fractures and our connections, our impact and our evanescence. She marks herself a worthy heir to the long tradition of smart women casting cool and careful glances at the American middle class.
An electrifying, daring, and magical debut collection sure to appeal to fans of Karen Russell and Lorrie Moore.” —Booklist, starred review
The spirit of Flannery O’ Connor resides in this collection of stories; Beasts and Children is the literary debut of a major talent.”
—Nickolas Butler, internationally-bestselling and prize-winning author of Shotgun Lovesongs and Beneath the Bonfire
“With her hauntingly perceptive and deeply honest voice, Amy Parker transports readers into the astonishing and often calamitous minds of children. Beasts and Children is a dazzling debut to be celebrated.”
—Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being, My Year of Meats, and others
This riveting collection executes a grim autopsy on American family life.”
—Kirkus
Read an excerpt on publisher HMH's website
Explore the beasts of Beasts & Children
PREORDER TODAY AT
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKS-A-MILLION
APPLE | KOBO | GOOGLE BOOKS
PRAISE FOR BEASTS & CHILDREN
“Parker brings all six characters together in a zestfully inventive and satisfyingly organic way as they navigate their dark and imperiling childhoods to emerge as flawed, fragile yet fiercely resilient adults. An electrifying, daring, and magical debut collection sure to appeal to fans of Karen Russell and Lorrie Moore.” —Booklist, starred review
“With her hauntingly perceptive and deeply honest voice, Amy Parker transports readers into the astonishing and often calamitous minds of children. Beasts and Children is a dazzling debut to be celebrated.”
—Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being, My Year of Meats, and others
“Reading Beasts and Children, I was struck not only by Amy Parker's incisive and skillfully crafted sentences but by the depth and integrity with which she treats every one of her characters. A beautiful and engaging debut.”
—Molly Antopol, author of The Unamericans
“It isn’t often that we encounter a writer who presents us, as readers, with a new-new style, a new way of looking at our beleaguered, battered world. But Amy Parker is that kind of artist. Beasts and Children is utterly original and true-hearted, a clear-eyed exploration of the natural world and our own delightfully flawed human relationships. The spirit of Flannery O’ Connor resides in this collection of stories; Beasts and Children is the literary debut of a major talent.”
—Nickolas Butler, internationally-bestselling and prize-winning author of Shotgun Lovesongs and Beneath the Bonfire
"Beasts and Children is a beautiful, haunting collection of stories whose deeply flawed and yet deeply human characters weave and wind themselves around your heart. As we follow them from childhood to adulthood, from old age to death, we learn that in the midst of all of life's tragedies, love comes from unexpected places."
—Chinelo Okparanta, author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness, LIke Water
“Intense, beautiful, and true, the stories in Beasts and Children speak to that catastrophe known as childhood: the loneliness and fleeting camaraderies; the perilous gaps of adult attention and soul-saving intimacy with the natural world. In her remarkable debut, Amy Parker proves herself an unflinching, passionate, and profoundly humane writer, even as she holds a knife to your heart.”
—Michelle Huneven, author of Blame and others
“Amy Parker’s stories are intensely interested in the human heart, and in particular the way it is often laid bare by the perpetual crises of childhood and family. As the stories twist and knot into what we understand as the characters’ full, complex lives, the reader is taken again and again by the alacrity of Parker’s narrative vision, her radical empathy for person and animal alike, and her touch with language. This collection rejuvenates and fantastically engages a classic preoccupation; it is fiction that does justice to the complicated joy and sadness of being alive, in a family, in this world.”
—Arna Bontemps Hemenway, author of Elegy on Kinderclavier, winner of the 2015 PEN/Hemingway Award
“Amy Parker's stories are thrillingly self-possessed. They stand perfectly poised, like balancing artists, between the lyrical and the no-nonsense, the impassioned and the restrained. She has a gift for uncloaking the mysteries of her characters, particularly the children, who themselves struggle to uncloak the mysteries of the great big world of other minds into which they've been born: friends and grown-ups, strangers and parents, humans and animals alike. I was moved and fascinated by this book. I'll be first in line to read her next.”
—Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Brief History of the Dead and others
“These stories provide a vivid kaleidoscope of narratives. Characters appear as children and then reappear, later in the book, married and with children of their own. Their stories are told and retold from varying perspectives, which provide new insight into their histories in the same way that a mystery can be pieced together from new details. As Parker’s title suggests, animals and children take a central role in the book; in each story, they are the registrars of pain inflicted upon, and by, a grown-up world. This riveting collection executes a grim autopsy on American family life.”
—Kirkus -