Karen Joy Fowler

From the New York Times–bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club, the story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and our narrator, Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “I spent the first eighteen years of my life defined by this one fact: that I was raised with a chimpanzee,” she tells us. “It’s never going to be the first thing I share with someone. I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern’s expulsion, I’d scarcely known a moment alone. She was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half, and I loved her as a sister.”Rosemary was not yet six when Fern was removed. Over the years, she’s managed to block a lot of memories. She’s smart, vulnerable, innocent, and culpable. With some guile, she guides us through the darkness, penetrating secrets and unearthing memories, leading us deeper into the mystery she has dangled before us from the start. Stripping off the protective masks that have hidden truths too painful to acknowledge, in the end, “Rosemary” truly is for remembrance.

Best Book of the Year Real Simple - AARP - USA Today From the Man Booker finalist and bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves comes an epic and intimate novel about the family behind one of the most infamous figures in American history: John Wilkes Booth.In 1822, a secret family moves into a secret cabin some thirty miles northeast of Baltimore, to farm, to hide, and to bear ten children over the course of the next sixteen years. Junius Booth--breadwinner, celebrated Shakespearean actor, and master of the house in more ways than one--is at once a mesmerizing talent and a man of terrifying instability. One by one the children arrive, as year by year, the country draws frighteningly closer to the boiling point of secession and civil war.As the tenor of the world shifts, the Booths emerge from their hidden lives to cement their place as one of the country's leading theatrical families. But behind the curtains of the many stages they have graced, multiple scandals, family triumphs, and criminal disasters begin to take their toll, and the solemn siblings of John Wilkes Booth are left to reckon with the truth behind the destructively specious promise of an early prophecy.Booth is a startling portrait of a country in the throes of change and a vivid exploration of the ties that make, and break, a family.

The Extraordinary New York Times Bestseller In California's central valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her eye for the frailties of human behavior and her ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships.Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy.

Two unlikely people form an unexpected bond in bestselling author Karen Joy Fowler’s captivating historical novel.When black cloaked Sarah Canary wanders into a Chinese labor camp in the Washington territories in 1873, Chin Ah Kin is ordered by his uncle to escort “the ugliest woman he could imagine” away. Far away. But Chin soon becomes the follower.In the first of many such instances, they are separated, both resurfacing some days later at an insane asylum. Chin has run afoul of the law and Sarah has been committed for observation. Their escape from the asylum in the company of another inmate sets into motion a series of adventures and misadventures that are at once hilarious, deeply moving, and downright terrifying.

Visiting her mystery writer godmother in coastal California after losing her father to cancer, Rima Lanisell endeavors to learn the nature of her godmother's and father's relationship, while her godmother struggles to keep myriad secrets from both Rima and a host of increasingly intrusive fans.

Loosely based in historical fact, Sister Noon is a wryly funny, playfully mysterious, and totally subversive novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club .Lizzie Hayes, a member of the San Francisco elite, is a seemingly docile, middle-aged spinster praised for her volunteer work with the Ladies Relief and Protection Society Home, or "The Brown Ark". All she needs is the spark that will liberate her from the ruling conventions.When the wealthy and well-connected, but ill-reputed Mary Ellen Pleasant shows up at the Brown Ark, Lizzie is drawn to her. It is the beautiful, but mysterious Mary Ellen, an outcast among the women of the elite because of her notorious past and her involvement in voodoo, who will eventually hold the key to unlocking Lizzie's rebellious nature.

In New York Times bestselling author Karen Joy Fowler's new collection, the fantastic and the uncanny lurk just below the surface of ordinary lives. In the award-winning title story, the narrator recounts the events of an expedition to the Belgian Congo in 1928 to collects gorillas for the Louisville Museum of Natural History. A mother invents a fairy-tale world for her son in 'Halfway People'. Twin sisters backpacking through Europe receive a mysterious invitation. A rebellious teenager is sent to a brutal reform school hidden away in paradise. A young woman inherits the family submarine. In 'The Dark', a researcher tracking plague outbreaks finds himself in the Viet Cong tunnels of Vietnam. A mystery writer visits an archaeological dig in Egypt and sets a curse in motion. In two stories, 'Booth's Ghost' and 'Standing Room Only', Fowler explores the circumstances of Lincoln's assassination from the perspectives of John Wilkes Booth's family and friends.Fowler, perhaps best known for her novels, is a master of the short story form: the secret history, the account of first contact, the murderous, ordinary tensions of family life. She draws on fairy tales, historical narratives, and war reportage, measuring the human capacities for hope and despair, brutality and kindness in the fantastic tradition of writers such as Shirley Jackson, T.H. White, Karen Russell, and Ursula K. Le Guin.

As a rebellious daughter of the sixties recalls the year her mother played baseball in 1947, two luminous stories begin to unfold in America's heartland, one lived and one imagined. . . .

Gifted novelist Fowler ( Sarah Canary and The Sweetheart Season ) delights in the arcane, and as a result, these 15 clever tales are occasionally puzzling but never dull.In the long title story, "Black Glass", temperance activist Carry Nation is resurrected in the 1990s ("We're talking about a very troubled, very big woman," says one shaken barman to reporters) and becomes such a nuisance that the DEA is forced to dispatch her with voodoo. Other plots are only slightly less outrageous in conceit. In "Lieserl," a lovesick madwoman dupes Albert Einstein into believing he has a daughter; in "The Faithful Companion at Forty," Tonto admits to second thoughts about his biggest life choice ("But for every day, for your ordinary life, a mask is only going to make you more obvious. There's an element of exhibitionism in it"). "The Travails" offers a peek at the one-sided correspondence of Mary Gulliver, who wants Lemuel to come home already and help out around the house. The homage to Swift makes sense, for, when Fowler doesn't settle for amusing her readers, she makes a lively satirist.The extraterrestrials who appear in her stories (whether the inscrutably sadistic monsters in "Duplicity" or the members of a seminar studying late-1960s college behavior in "The View from Venus: A Case Study") seem stand-ins for the author herself, who, in elegant and witty prose, cultivates the eye of a curious alien and, along the way, unfolds eccentric plots that keep the pages turning.Contents:Black Glass (1991)Contention (1986)Shimabara (1995)The Elizabeth Complex (1996)Go Back (1998)The Travails (1998)Lieserl (1990)Letters from Home (1987)Duplicity (1989)The Faithful Companion at Forty (1987)The Brew (1995)Lily Red (1988)The Black Fairy's Curse (1997)The View from Venus (1986)Game Night at the Fox and Goose (1989)

Rima Lanisell is at a loose end, following the death of her father. She has come to California to stay with her godmother, Addison Early, who once knew Rima's father well. Addison is a best-selling mystery writer. Over the years, she has tried to protect her work and her privacy as her fans have become ever more intrusive.

Widely respected in the so-called “mainstream” for her New York Times bestselling novels, Karen Joy Fowler is also a formidable, often controversial, and always exuberant presence in Science Fiction. Here she debuts a provocative new story written especially for this series. Set in the days of Darwin, “ The Science of Herself ” is a marvelous hybrid of SF and historical the almost-true story of England’s first female paleontologist who took on the Victorian old-boy establishment armed with only her own fierce intelligence—and an arsenal of dino bones. Plus...“ The Pelican Bar ,” a homely tale of family ties that makes Guantánamo look like summer camp; “The Further Adventures of the Invisible Man,” a droll tale of sports, shoplifting and teen sex; and “ The Motherhood Statement ,” a quietly angry upending of easy assumptions that shows off Fowler’s deep radicalism and impatience with conservative homilies and liberal pieties alike. And our Outspoken Interview in which Fowler prophesies California’s fate, reveals the role of bad movies in good marriages, and intimates that girls just want to have fun (which means make trouble).

An extraordinary collection of short stories from the award-winning author of Sarah Canary. Including "Praxis", the story about a theater where the real and unreal collide; "The Poplar Street Study", Fowler's darkly comic account of an alien invasion; and "The Gates of Ghosts", in which a child journeys to a strange and deadly world, this anthology of 13 tales also features a new foreword by the author. Contents:The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things (1985)The Poplar Street Study (1985)Face Value (1986)The Dragon's Head (1986)The War of the Roses (1985)Contention (1986)Recalling Cinderella (1985)Other Planes (1986)The Gate of Ghosts (1986)The Bog People (1986)Wild Boys: Variations on a Theme (1986)The View from Venus (1986)Praxis (1985)

A private gift to Ursula K. Le Guin becomes a gift to all readers, an exciting chance to enjoy someone else's birthday present. In 2009, for the momentous occasion of Ursula K. Le Guin's 80th birthday, Karen Joy Fowler and Debbie Notkin put together a volume of tributes and appreciations, as a birthday present. The project, known in academic circles as a ''festschrift,'' or ''celebration book,'' resulted in a single copy, handbound in green leather, which Karen presented to Ursula a few days after her birthday in October. The original idea came from Kim Stanley Robinson, who also contributed an essay to the book. With Ms. Le Guin's kind agreement, Aqueduct Press is delighted to share this unique celebration with Le Guin's readers and fans. The book contains poetry, personal essays, academic essays, biographical information about Le Guin, as well as fiction, including previously unpublished fiction by Andrea Hairston and John Kessel. Publication will coincide with Le Guin's 81st birthday. Contributors include Eleanor Arnason, Brian Attebery, Richard Chwedyk, Karen Joy Fowler, Molly Gloss, Eileen Gunn, Andrea Hairston, Jed Hartman, Gwyneth Jones, John Kessel, Ellen Kushner, Nancy Kress, Sarah LeFanu, Vonda N. McIntyre, Pat Murphy, Julie Phillips, Paul Preuss, Kim Stanley Robinson, Nisi Shawl, Lisa Tuttle, Élisabeth Vonarburg, and Jo Walton, among others.

For reading

Fantastiques, intimistes, réalistes, fantasy ou science-fiction, les 17 nouvelles rassemblées dans ce recueil rendent compte de la variété des registres de Karen Joy Fowler, à travers lesquels elle explore les conventions sociales et les relations familiales. Des textes parfois cruels, parfois sardoniques, révélant dans les rapports à l’autre, à l’étranger, au non humain, la topographie de nos inconscients et de nos peurs.

This fourth entry in a notable and controversial series continues to celebrate provocative fiction that explores and expands gender. Through their subversive, engaging fiction, Tiptree award–winning authors offer fascinating speculations on the ever-increasing mutability of our identities and desires. The James Tiptree, Jr. Award is an annual literary prize for speculative fiction, named for the pen name of one of science fiction’s most brilliant writers, Alice B. Sheldon. Authors selected for this series include Dorothy Allison, Ted Chiang, Joe Haldeman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Kelly Link, and Joanna Russ.

This is a collection of short stories and a novelette selected and written by the author:Introduction (Peripheral Vision)The Faithful Companion at Forty (1987)Lily Red (1988)Contention (1986)LieserlThe View from Venus (1986)

2 books, 1 cassette, "The Popular StreetStudy" Terry Farrell, and "Feedback" Robin Curtis

First appearance in print of these works. SIGNED by Karen Joy Fowler at her story 'The Dragon's Head' and by Harry Turtledove at his novelette 'Strange Eruptions.' Also includes fiction by Lucius Shephard, Orson Scott Card, nonfiction by Asimov, Michael Swanwick and others. . Cover art by Terry Lee.

Outstanding Copy - Signed By Karen Joy Fowler On The Title Page. A First Edition, First Printing. Book Is In Fine Condition. Boards Are Clean, Not Bumped. Fore Edges Are Clean. Interior Is Clean And Legible. Not Remaindered.