Lara Tupper – författare

Elle.com described this debut novel as "an alternately hilarious and poignant look at the unsettled state of one woman trying to make it outside the socially sanctioned college-office-marriage trajectory." Karla, 22, is thrilled to be hired as an entertainer on the Sound of Music cruise ship-where the rum punch is 80 percent Kool-Aid, the ice sculptures are plastic, and her "fake it till you make it" M.O. seems adventuresome. Karla is less thrilled when new beau Jack suggests they form a singing duo on land, but by now false enthusiasm has become second nature. They embark on a not-as-glamorous-as-it-should-be career performing in the luxury hotel bars of the Middle East and China. After a thousand and one nights on the road, Karla and Jack find themselves struggling to keep their act-both personal and professional-together. "Both an off-kilter take on the conventional coming-of-age tale and a sly commentary on the underbelly of celebrity culture, this truly original book is basically uncategorizable-blissfully so." - Elle.com

Amphibians invites further contemplation of female physicality—what it means to reside in a female form. An amphibious aircraft crashes in Maine, a young girl skinny-dips with her elders, a distraught cruise ship dancer boards a water taxi in Grenada, and travelers to Dubai and Abu Dhabi long for familiar oceans; back in New England, small-town artists try to smudge out their tedium with seaside transgressions. Amphibians celebrates home in a cross-cultural way, and the sensation of feeling not quite right in one’s own skin, on land and near water, at home and abroad.