Life Among the Terranauts

De: Caitlin Horrocks

Narrado por: Angèle Masters, Anne Marie Gideon, Caroline Slaughter, Casey Holloway, Jeanette Illidge, Joe Knezevich, Nicholas Tecosky, Suehyla El-Attar

From the author of the “enthralling” (New York Times Book Review) and “beautiful” (Washington Post) debut novel The Vexations comes an exciting new story collection that is “perfect for fans of George Saunders and Karen Russell” (Booklist), moving boldly between the real and the surreal

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

Following her “marvelous” (Wall Street Journal) first novel, Caitlin Horrocks returns with a much-anticipated collection of short stories. In her signature, genre-defying style, she explodes our notions of what a story can do and where it can take us.

Life Among the Terranauts demonstrates all the inventiveness that won admirers for Horrocks’s first collection. In “The Sleep,” reprinted in Best American Short Stories, residents of a town in the frigid Midwest decide to hibernate through the bitter winters. In the title story, half a dozen people move into an experimental biodome for a shot at a million dollars, if they can survive two years. And in “Sun City,” published in The New Yorker, a young woman meets her grandmother’s roommate in the wake of her death and attempts to solve the mystery of whether the two women were lovers.

As the Boston Globe noted of her first collection, Horrocks is a master of “wild yet delicately handled satire,” a “sprightly heartbreak” in which she is able to “mingle a note of tenderness in the desolation.” With its startling range—from Norwegian trolls to Peruvian tour guides—Life Among the Terranauts once again dazzles readers, cementing Horrocks’s reputation as one of the premier young writers of our time.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Potent… The slow violence of economic hardship and ecological degradation underpins each tale.” —The New Yorker

“Life Among the Terranauts reinforces Caitlin Horrocks’s status as a maestro of short fiction… compiled of humorous and tenacious stories that serve as a reminder that the flyover states are rife with folklore and intrigue. The sense of place matches the sense of wonder, a perfect amalgamation of geography and plot.”—Aram Mrjoian, Chicago Review of Books

“Genre-bending, hauntingly environmental.” —Entertainment Weekly

“A series of vivid, immersive short stories… Whether you enjoy sci-fi, realistic fiction or bite-sized escapes from the real world, you'll find something to love here.”—Good Housekeeping (Best Books of the Year)

“Horrocks is adept at playing with perspective, delving into the minds of puzzling, sometimes troubling, characters… ‘Life Among the Terranauts’ is a chilling story, and it is fitting that the volume bears its name. The title captures the collection’s breadth… ‘Teacher’ is brief but vivid, its opening and closing lines full of searing clarity.” —Noor Qasim, New York Times Book Review

“Pristine… while the stories are thematically at home alongside Horrocks’ previous work, they are unquestionably an artistic and technical leap beyond… Horrocks is a fan of narrative voices that set the reader at ease from the opening line… But any breeziness is eventually undercut by an insidiousness lurking at the heart of each story, as these narrators tell you their deepest secrets… Horrocks proves herself a master of locating the identity of a place, evoking tone, and summoning a character with a single, authenticating detail.” —David James Poissant, New York Journal of Books

“A series of vivid, immersive short stories… we meet characters… navigating deeply human experiences that could be ripped from our own lives. Whether you enjoy sci-fi, realistic fiction or bite-sized escapes from the real world, you'll find something to love here.”—Lizz Schumer, Good Housekeeping, Best Books to Read in 2021

“These stories… are fascinated by the congenitally antisocial. Characters keep themselves separated from lovers and family members for no reason they can name, as though estrangement were a trait as fixed as eye color.”—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

“Whether you like sci-fi, surrealist fiction, or just need to get out of your own head, you'll find something to love in this vivid story collection. You'll meet a town that hibernates for the winter, six people who decide to live in a biodome for a cash reward, and others living through circumstances both wildly bizarre and not so dissimilar to our own.”—Woman’s Day, Best Books of 2021