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by Dylan Landis
A novel-in-stories by one of the form's very best, following a teenager and her mother navigating the tumult of New York City in the 1970s.
At the center of this startling fiction debut is Leah Levinson, a teen at sea in the anonymous ordeals of a middle-class upbringing on the Upper West Side in the 1970s. In ten installments, written from varying perspectives, we witness her uneasy relationships with faster, looser peers―girls she is drawn to but also alienated by.
No one, though, alienates Leah more than her mother, Helen. Estranged yet intertwined, they struggle within the confines of their personalities, unaware of how similar their paths are. Just when they seem at a lonely impasse, each makes an impulsive change―Leah taking a risky trip abroad, Helen renting a secret room in a welfare hotel. Jolted from their old patterns, the two of them independently glimpse the possibility of a more hopeful life.
Dylan Landis is a gifted portraitist of unforgettable female characters. Normal People Don't Live Like This is a striking debut.
"Dylan Landis has a gift for creating characters...Watch her very carefully. Once you can create characters like Leah (or Angeline, Rainey and Helen), there's no stopping you." —Los Angeles Times
"The characters in Dylan Landis's debut story collection, Normal People Don't Live Like This, are blessedly extraordinary." —Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair
"You think, while tearing through the pages: This woman knows all my secrets. The intrigue of Landis's stories lies in small gestures and the exploration of characters' psyches with a thorough, delicate eye." —The Rumpus
This information about Normal People Don't Live Like This 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.
Dylan Landis has published stories in Bomb, Tin House, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and elsewhere. A former journalist, she has won a Poets & Writers California Voices Award and other honors for her fiction. She is the author of Rainey Royal and Normal People Don't Live Like This, as well as several books on decorating, such as Elegant and Easy Rooms. She lives in New York City.
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