The Small Backs of Children - Softcover

Yuknavitch, Dr Lidia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062383256 ISBN 13: 9780062383259

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2016

Synopsis

National Bestseller

A masterful literary talent explores the treacherous, often violent borders between war and sex, love and art.

With the flash of a camera, one girl's life is shattered, and a host of others altered forever. . .

In a war-torn village in Eastern Europe, an American photographer captures a heart-stopping image: a young girl flying toward the lens, fleeing a fiery explosion that has engulfed her home and family. The image wins acclaim and prizes, becoming an icon for millions--and a subject of obsession for one writer, the photographer's best friend, who has suffered a devastating tragedy of her own.

As the writer plunges into a suicidal depression, her filmmaker husband enlists several friends, including a fearless bisexual poet and an ingenuous performance artist, to save her by rescuing the unknown girl and bringing her to the United States. And yet, as their plot unfolds, everything we know about the story comes into question: What does the writer really want? Who is controlling the action? And what will happen when these two worlds--east and west, real and virtual--collide?

A fierce, provocative, and deeply affecting novel of both ideas and action that blends the tight construction of Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending with the emotional power of Anthony Marra's A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Lidia Yuknavitch's The Small Backs of Children is a major step forward from one of our most avidly watched writers.

About this title

Review:

"Yuknavitch has emerged as a trailblazing literary voice that spans genres and dives deep into themes of gender, sexuality, art, violence, and transcendence."--Suleika Jaouad, Lenny Letter

"I have never felt so wrung out by a novel and yet simultaneously invigorated...a terrifically good novel and powerfully written."--Paris Review

"An intensely corporal, potently feminist, tenaciously written work as alert to animal resilience as to the capacity for bruised and battered suffering, for desire, for ecstasy."--Boston Globe

"Lidia Yuknavitch burns through sex, art, and war in The Small Backs of Children."--Vanity Fair

"The Small Backs of Children beautifully examines the fractures of loss and the myriad ways we can recover from it. "--Huffington Post

"Gorgeous, scary, and a breathtaking rush to read, this book is less a meditation than a provocation on the power and dangers of art."--Library Journal (starred review)

"Lidia Yuknavitch's first novel for a big publisher is a big winner."--The Oregonian

"The Small Backs of Children proves once again that Yuknavitch is witness to the kind of stories we ought to read."--The Rumpus.com

"[An example] of thrilling storytelling with universal appeal."--Entertainment Weekly

"Yuknavitch has a point of view and a fragmented and fractured visionary elegance in her poetic, allusive punk-infused voice. She grabs readers by the throats and immerses them in an intense, wrenching fictive world, but lets them up for air through careful structuring and pacing."--Buffalo News

From the Back Cover:

In a war-torn village in Eastern Europe, an American photographer captures a heart-stopping image: a young girl flying toward the lens, fleeing a fiery explosion that has engulfed her home and family. The image, instantly iconic, garners acclaim and prizes--and, in the United States, becomes a subject of obsession for one writer, the photographer's best friend, who has suffered a devastating tragedy of her own.

In a bid to save the writer from a spiraling depression, her filmmaker husband enlists a group of friends--including a fearless bisexual poet, an ingenuous performance artist, the writer's playwright brother, and her painter ex-husband--to rescue the unknown girl and bring her to the United States. And yet, as their plot unfolds, everything we know comes into question: What does the writer really want? Who is controlling the action? And what will happen when these two worlds--East and West, real and virtual--collide?

A fierce, provocative, and deeply affecting novel exploring the often violent borders between war and sex, love and art, The Small Backs of Children firmly places Lidia Yuknavitch in the vanguard of contemporary American writing.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0062383256
• ISBN 13: 9780062383259
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256