Nora Lange – författare

Nora Lange's debut novel, Us Fools, was praised as the 'Great American Novel' by Molly Young in The New York Times, and 'a razor-sharp critique of American capitalism' by Michael Schaub at NPR. Now, she turns her eye toward the daily exercise of getting by. In 'Heart Beats', Carol and David arrive late to a Boston dinner party for a night of 'messy socialising' with other couples, including a former cult-leader turned financial-advisor and a woman who learned of a 'kinky sort of game' while riding public transit, details that she will reveal after the peach crumble. In 'Island of Phaetons', an expatriate living in Istanbul is called away from her daily life with 'the husband' and 'the friend who wanted more than friendship' to visit her mother, who notoriously makes bad decisions, and who has just arrived in Greece 'with news' for her daughter, a tantalising invitation that has her daughter immediately on a plane. In 'Dog Star', two figurines live out their dreams before succumbing to the truth that they have been assembled inside of a snow globe and will never go anywhere. In the title story, a new mother in Los Angeles navigates a job, a long-distance relationship with her husband, and her visiting mother, while hoping to find relief in daytime app sex. These stories of lust, estrangement, and self-preservation are at once hilarious and savage.

Joanne and Bernadette Fareown are raised on their family farm in rural Illinois, keenly affected by their parents' volatile relationship and mounting financial debt, haunted by the cursed history of the women in their family. Largely left to their own devices, the sisters educate themselves on Greek mythology, feminism, and Virginia Woolf, realising they must find unique ways to cope in these antagonistic conditions, questioning the American Dream as the rest of the country abandons their community in crisis. As Jo and Bernie's imaginative solutions for escape come up short against their parents' realities, the family leaves their farm for Chicago, where Joanne - free-spirited, reckless, and unable to tame her inner violence - rebels in increasingly desperate ways. After her worst breakdown yet, Jo goes into exile in Deadhorse, Alaska, and it is up to Bernadette to use all she's learned from her sister to revive a sense of hope against the backdrop of a failing world. With her debut novel, Nora Lange has crafted a rambunctious, ambitious, and heart-rending portrait of two idiosyncratic sisters, determined to persevere despite the worst that capitalism and their circumstances has to throw at them.