The Chronology of Water
This is not your mother’s memoir. In The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch, a lifelong swimmer and Olympic hopeful escapes her raging father and alcoholic and suicidal mother when she accepts a swimming scholarship which drug and alcohol addiction eventually cause her to lose. What follows is promiscuous sex with both men and women, some of them famous, and some of it S&M, and Lidia discovers the power of her sexuality to help her forget her pain. The forgetting doesn’t last, though, and it is her hard-earned career as a writer and a teacher, and the love of her husband and son, that ultimately create the life she needs to survive.
Verge
LONGLISTED FOR THE STORY PRIZE Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Bustle and Lit Hub A fiercely empathetic group portrait of the marginalized and outcast in moments of crisis, from one of the most galvanizing voices in American fiction. Lidia Yuknavitch is a writer of rare insight into the jagged boundaries between pain and survival. Her characters are scarred by the unchecked hungers of others and themselves, yet determined to find salvation within lives that can feel beyond their control. In novels such as The Small Backs of Children and The Book of Joan, she has captivated readers with stories of visceral power. Now, in Verge, she offers a shard-sharp mosaic portrait of human resilience on the margins. The landscape of Verge is peopled with characters who are innocent and imperfect, wise and endangered: an eight-year-old black-market medical courier, a restless lover haunted by memories of his mother, a teenage girl gazing out her attic window at a nearby prison, all of them wounded but grasping toward transcendence. Clear-eyed yet inspiring, Verge challenges us with moments of uncomfortable truth, even as it urges us to place our faith not in the flimsy guardrails of society but in the memories held—and told—by our own individual bodies.
The Misfit's Manifesto
The author explores the status of being a misfit as something to be embraced, and social misfits as being individuals of value who have a place in society, in a work that encourages people who have had difficulty finding their way to pursue their goals.
The Book of Joan
A New York Times Notable Book of 2017 The 25 Most Anticipated Books by Women for 2017, Elle Magazine The 32 Most Exciting Books Coming Out in 2017, BuzzFeed 50 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2017, Nylon Magazine 33 New Books to Read in 2017, The Huffington Post Most Anticipated, The Great 2017 Book Preview, The Millions New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice National Bestseller “Brilliant and incendiary. . . . Radically new, full of maniacal invention and page-turning momentum. . . .Yuknavitch has exhibited a rare gift for writing that concedes little in its quest to be authentic, meaningful and relevant. By adding speculative elements to The Book of Joan, she reaches new heights with even higher stakes: the death or life of our planet.” — Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times Book Review (cover review) “Stunning. . . . Yuknavitch understands that our collective narrative can either destroy or redeem us, and the outcome depends not just on who’s telling it, but also on who’s listening.” — O, The Oprah Magazine “[A] searing fusion of literary fiction and reimagined history and science-fiction thriller and eco-fantasy. . . Yuknavitch is a bold and ecstatic writer.” — NPR Books “[The Book of Joan] offers a wealth of pathos, with plenty of resonant excruciations and some disturbing meditations on humanity’s place in creation . . . [It] concludes in a bold and satisfying apotheosis like some legend out of The Golden Bough and reaffirms that even amid utter devastation and ruin, hope can still blossom.” — Washington Post The bestselling author of The Small Backs of Children offers a vision of our near-extinction and a heroine—a reimagined Joan of Arc—poised to save a world ravaged by war, violence, and greed, and forever change history, in this provocative new novel. In the near future, world wars have transformed the earth into a battleground. Fleeing the unending violence and the planet’s now-radioactive surface, humans have regrouped to a mysterious platform known as CIEL, hovering over their erstwhile home. The changed world has turned evolution on its head: the surviving humans have become sexless, hairless, pale-white creatures floating in isolation, inscribing stories upon their skin. Out of the ranks of the endless wars rises Jean de Men, a charismatic and bloodthirsty cult leader who turns CIEL into a quasi-corporate police state. A group of rebels unite to dismantle his iron rule—galvanized by the heroic song of Joan, a child-warrior who possesses a mysterious force that lives within her and communes with the earth. When de Men and his armies turn Joan into a martyr, the consequences are astonishing. And no one—not the rebels, Jean de Men, or even Joan herself—can foresee the way her story and unique gift will forge the destiny of an entire world for generations. A riveting tale of destruction and love found in the direst of places—even at the extreme end of post-human experience—Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Book of Joan raises questions about what it means to be human, the fluidity of sex and gender, and the role of art as a means for survival.
Dora: A Headcase
Ida has a secret: she is in love with her best friend. But any time she gets close to intimacy, Ida faints or loses her voice. She needs a shrink. Or so her philandering father thinks. Immediately wise to the head games of her new shrink, Siggy, Ida - and alter-ego Dora - hatch a plan to secretly film him. But when the film goes viral, Ida finds herself targeted by unethical hackers. Dora: A Headcase is a contemporary coming-of-age story based on Freud's famous case study, retold and revamped through Dora's point-of-view. Yuknavitch's Dora is radical and unapologetic - you won't have met a character quite like her before.
