Review
St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
consists of ten short stories, unconnected except that they are
all set in a surreal version of America and are all inhabited by
precociously articulate children who (in Russell's words) are
"coming alive to certain adult truths but lack the perspective
to make sense of them". For example, in "Haunting Olivia" two
boys search for their dead sister who floated out to sea on a
giant crab shell; in the title story a pack of girls raised by
their werewolf parents are educated into polite society; and in
"Ava Wrestles the Alligator" Ava is left in charge of her
family's theme park, Swamplandia, its seventy alligators and an
older sister possessed nightly by a very randy demon (Russell is
currently working on a full length novel about Ava and her
family, see...
Beyond the Book
How does Russel feel to be listed as
one of 25 Under 25 to Watch in New York
Magazine?
"I am just bursting with joy and
gratitude, of the slack-jawed, awestruck
variety. This book is a miracle to me—it’s
a miracle that it has an ISBN number and
a cover, that it exists as a book at all
when for so long it was just an ungainly
word file on my computer. At this time
last year, I would have been happy to
place a story with
The Journal of
Spotted Dogs. To have found a home
for the collection, it’s the great
miracle of my life to date. My dream
really did come true, which I think is a...
