American Follies

Norman Lock is the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage and radio plays. He has won The Dactyl Foundation Literary Fiction Award, The Paris Review Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, and has been longlisted twice for the Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Prize. He has also received writing fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey, where he is at work on the next books of The American Novels series.

Praise for American FolliesJoyce Carol Oates Prize LonglistBig Other Book Award FinalistForeword Reviews “Book of the Day” selection“Provocative, funny and sobering.” —Washington Post“Ragtime in a fever dream. . . . When you mix 19th-century racists, feminists, misogynists, freaks, and a flim-flam man, the spectacle that results might bear resemblance to the contemporary United States.” —Library Journal (starred review)“A thrilling, unnerving portrait of 19th-century America. . . . One part novel of ideas, one part madcap adventure.” —Kirkus Reviews“Dark, carnivalesque. . . . American Follies features lavish period details and unsettling alternative world building, warping expectations and standing out for its rapier wit.” —Foreword Reviews“Raucous, fantastical. . . . [An] imaginative exploration of late-19th-century America’s cultural tensions.” —Publishers Weekly“Lock nimbly explores race, gender, and identity through a historical lens while displaying a joyous love of language.” —Booklist“Superbly crafted. . . . Absorbing and memorable.” —Midwest Book Review“Brings to life the two suffragists, Anthony and Stanton. . . . A thoroughly worthwhile read.” —Historical Novels ReviewSelect Praise for Norman Lock’s The American Novels Series“Norman Lock has created a memorable portrait gallery of American subjects, in a succession of audaciously imagined, wonderfully original, and beautifully written novels unlike anything in our literature.” —Joyce Carol Oates“Shimmers with glorious language, fluid rhythms, and complex insights.” —Jane Ciabattari, NPR“Our national history and literature are Norman Lock’s playground in his dazzling series, The American Novels. . . . [His] supple, elegantly plain-spoken prose captures the generosity of the American spirit in addition to its moral failures, and his passionate engagement with our literary heritage evinces pride in its unique character.” —Wendy Smith, Washington Post“This is fiction of a high caliber. . . on the cutting edge of history, providing us with a way to grapple with our evolving sense of the past, as we wonder what is next.” —Carl Rollyson, New York SunOn The Boy in His Winter“[Lock] is one of the most interesting writers out there. This time, he re-imagines Huck Finn’s journeys, transporting the iconic character deep into America’s past—and future.” —Reader’s DigestOn American Meteor“[Walt Whitman] hovers over [American Meteor], just as Mark Twain’s spirit pervaded The Boy in His Winter. . . . Like all Mr. Lock’s books, this is an ambitious work, where ideas crowd together on the page like desperate men on a battlefield.” —Wall Street JournalOn The Port-Wine Stain“Lock’s novel engages not merely with [Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Dent Mütter] but with decadent fin de siècle art and modernist literature that raised philosophical and moral questions about the metaphysical relations among art, science and human consciousness. The reader is just as spellbound by Lock’s story as [his novel’s narrator] is by Poe’s. . . . Echoes of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Freud’s theory of the uncanny abound in this mesmerizingly twisted, richly layered homage to a pioneer of American Gothic fiction.” —New York Times Book ReviewOn A Fugitive in Walden Woods“A Fugitive in Walden Woods manages that special magic of making Thoreau’s time in Walden Woods seem fresh and surprising and necessary right now. . . . This is a patient and perceptive novel, a pleasure to read even as it grapples with issues that affect the United States to this day.” —Victor LaValle, author of Lone WomenOn The Wreckage of Eden“The lively passages of Emily [Dickinson]’s letters are so evocative of her poetry that it becomes easy to see why Robert finds her so captivating. The book also expands and deepens themes of moral hypocrisy around racism and slavery. . . . Lyrically written but unafraid of the ugliness of the time, Lock’s thought-provoking series continues to impress.” —Publishers WeeklyOn Feast Day of the Cannibals“Lock does not merely imitate 19th-century prose; he makes it his own, with verbal flourishes worthy of Melville.” —Gay & Lesbian ReviewOn Tooth of the Covenant“Splendid. . . . Lock masters the interplay between nineteenth-century Hawthorne and his fictional surrogate, Isaac, as he travels through Puritan New England. The historical details are immersive and meticulous.” —Foreword Reviews (starred review)On Voices in the Dead House“Gripping. . . . The legacy of John Brown looms over both Alcott and Whitman [in] a haunting novel that offers candid portraits of literary legends.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)On The Ice Harp“Lock deftly takes us into the polyphonic swirl of Emerson’s mind at the end of his life, inviting us to meet the man anew even as the philosopher fights to stop forgetting himself. . . . [A] remarkably empathetic and deeply moral novel.” —Matt Bell, author of AppleseedOn The Caricaturist“Lock successfully mimics Crane’s impressionistic style in his marvelous depictions of late 19th-century America.” —Publishers WeeklyOn Eden’s Clock“Lock’s final title in his resplendent American Novels series . . . poignantly explores the nature of human connection. Rich in period detail and memorable characters, this is a fitting conclusion to the series.” —Booklist