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Lily King biography

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Lily King

Lily King

Lily King Biography

Lily King is The New York Times bestselling author of five novels: The Pleasing Hour (1999), The English Teacher (2005), Father of the Rain (2010), Euphoria (2014), and Writers & Lovers (2020). Her first story collection, Five Tuesdays in Winter, was published in 2021. Her work has won numerous prizes and awards, including the Kirkus Prize, the New England Book Award for Fiction (twice), The Maine Fiction Award (twice), a Whiting Award, and the B&N Discover Award. She has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway. Lily lives in Portland, Maine.

Lily King's website

This bio was last updated on 12/29/2021. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

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Interview

Two interviews with Lily King about her life and works, and in particular her 2014 novel Euphoria, and Father of the Rain (2010)

Two interviews with Lily King about her life and works, and in particular her 2014 novel Euphoria, and Father of the Rain (2010)

A Conversation with Lily King about Euphoria, loosely inspired by the life of anthropologist Margaret Mead

Euphoria is loosely inspired by events in the life of Margaret Mead—what first struck you about this revolutionary anthropologist?
I loved that her personal life was even more radical than her anthropology, and that the two were completely entwined. She had many lovers, men and women, often at the same time, whether she was married or not. And she believed that our culture's lack of sexual freedom was the root of some of our most serious problems. She was always working out theories of anthropology through her relationships and theories about her relationships through anthropology. "The world is my field," she said. "It's all anthropology."

Why did you decide for the first time to deal with a historical premise for Euphoria?
I didn't mean to. In fact, I tried not to write it for a long time, because it was so far out of the realm of what I'd written before—or even what I like to read. But I started reading this biography of Margaret Mead, and I got to this ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Lily King at BookBrowse
Five Tuesdays in Winter jacket Euphoria jacket Father of the Rain jacket The English Teacher jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Lily King but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Chris Bohjalian

    Chris Bohjalian

    Chris Bohjalian is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-three books, including Hour of the Witch, The Red Lotus, Midwives, and The Flight Attendant, was the basis for the hit HBO Max television series starring ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Father of the Rain

    Try:
    Midwives
    by Chris Bohjalian

  • Claire Cameron

    Claire Cameron

    Claire Cameron's novel, The Bear, became a #1 national bestseller in Canada and was long-listed for the 2014 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. Cameron's writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Globe & Mail, the ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Euphoria

    Try:
    The Last Neanderthal
    by Claire Cameron

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