The Enchantment of Lily Dahl
On sale
15th March 2012
Price: £9.99
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION
FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF WHAT I LOVED
‘A taut and convincing drama, as well as an intriguing metaphysical thriller’ Sunday Times
‘Full of humour, surprise and powerful images’ Observer
Lily Dahl is a heroine of the old school: tough, beautiful and brave. A nineteen-year-old waitress and aspiring actress living in Webster, Minnesota, she becomes enchanted by an exotic outsider – an artist from New York. Drawn into a world of erotic adventure, she finds herself the target of mysterious acts of madness as she strains against the confines of small town life.
‘Queasily erotic, gothic and menacing’ Evening Standard
PRAISE FOR SIRI HUSTVEDT:
‘Hustvedt is that rare artist, a writer of high intelligence, profound sensuality and a less easily definable capacity for which the only word I can find is wisdom’ Salman Rushdie
‘One of our finest novelists’ Oliver Sacks
‘Reading a Hustvedt novel is like consuming the best of David Lynch’ Financial Times
‘Few contemporary writers are as satisfying and stimulating to read as Siri Hustvedt’ Washington Post
FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF WHAT I LOVED
‘A taut and convincing drama, as well as an intriguing metaphysical thriller’ Sunday Times
‘Full of humour, surprise and powerful images’ Observer
Lily Dahl is a heroine of the old school: tough, beautiful and brave. A nineteen-year-old waitress and aspiring actress living in Webster, Minnesota, she becomes enchanted by an exotic outsider – an artist from New York. Drawn into a world of erotic adventure, she finds herself the target of mysterious acts of madness as she strains against the confines of small town life.
‘Queasily erotic, gothic and menacing’ Evening Standard
PRAISE FOR SIRI HUSTVEDT:
‘Hustvedt is that rare artist, a writer of high intelligence, profound sensuality and a less easily definable capacity for which the only word I can find is wisdom’ Salman Rushdie
‘One of our finest novelists’ Oliver Sacks
‘Reading a Hustvedt novel is like consuming the best of David Lynch’ Financial Times
‘Few contemporary writers are as satisfying and stimulating to read as Siri Hustvedt’ Washington Post
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Reviews
Compelling...Webster's hot-house atmosphere and collection of oddballs and freaks are brilliantly evoked...She orchestrates suspense masterfully and her writing has a quality of stillness, of effortless deliberation, which is peculiarly suited to the sense of foreboding.
Full of humour, surprise and powerful images...Hustvedt's real triumph, though, is to take the ordinary and make it strange while showing how all strangeness is rooted in the ordinary.
Told with the gripping pace of a straightforward mystery tale...A natural born storyteller
A taut and convincing drama, as well as an intriguing metaphysical thriller
Subtle, complex and engaging
Hustvedt's powerful theme of small-town mentality shows how intimacy and claustrophobia, secrets and skeletons, come out of the same closet...[an] exploration of the narrow line between imagination and reality while still managing to be a rip-roaring adventure story...beautifully written
A startlingly good novel, tautly written and very sexy.