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Bill Roorbach conjures vivid, complex characters whose layered interior worlds feel at once familiar and extraordinary. His astounding new collection, The Girl of the Lake, captures a virtuoso in his prime.
Among the unforgettable characters Roorbach creates in The Girl of the Lake are an adventurous boy who learns what courage really is when an aging nobleman recounts history to him; a couple hiking through the mountains whose vacation and relationship ends catastrophically; a teenager being pursued by three sisters all at once; a tech genius who exacts revenge on his wife and best friend over a stolen kiss from years past; and many more.
These stories - some being published for the first time, the rest originally from the Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, Ploughshares, the Missouri Review, Ecotone, and others - are as rich in scope, emotional, and unforgettable as Bill Roorbach's novels. He has been called "a kinder, gentler John Irving ... a humane and entertaining storyteller with a smooth, graceful style" (the Washington Post), and his work has been described as "hilarious and heartbreaking, wild and wise" (Parade magazine), all of which is evident in every story in this arresting new collection.
"Starred Review. Elegant, assured short stories…Readable entertainments that have much to say about the world." - Kirkus
"The 10 generous, daring short stories in the new collection by the author of Life Among Giants range from tricky romance to dark comedy to breathtaking adventure." - Publishers Weekly
"A stellar collection of stories from one of our best writers. Roorbach's wild imagination combined with his brilliance as a storyteller, his relentless humor, and his tender understanding of humanity make The Girl of the Lake compulsive and essential reading." - Lily King, author of Euphoria
This information about The Girl of the Lake was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Bill Roorbach is the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction, including the Flannery O'Connor Prize and O. Henry Prize winner Big Bend; Into Woods; Temple Stream; and the bestselling Life Among Giants. The 10th anniversary edition of his craft book, Writing Life Stories, is used in writing programs around the world. His work has been published in Harper's, the Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, the New York Times Magazine, Granta, New York, and dozens of other magazines and journals.
Life Among Giants was an Editor's Pick for Amazon's Best 2012, a Shelf Awareness Top Ten Best Fiction for 2012, and a winner of the Maine Literary Award for Fiction.
Author Interview
Link to Bill Roorbach's Website
Name Pronunciation
Bill Roorbach: ROAR-bahk
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