Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell

Book 64/75

Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

ORANGE WORLD AND OTHER STORIES by Karen Russell is a collection of eight previously published short stories.

The Prospectors - A ghost story of loss, love, and moving on, one of my favorites from the collection.

The Bad Graft - A bizarre scifi horror story about Joshua trees.

Bog Girl: A Romance - A young boy unearths a bog girl while cutting peat. A love affair ensues. Yes, it seems that weird.

Madame Bovary's Greyhound - This exactly what it is, a short story about Madame Bovary's Greyhound. Having never read MADAME BOVARY (no shaming!), I'm not familiar with how the Greyhound's story plays out there, but this story seemed to be touched with a flavor of THE CALL OF THE WILD. I don't know that the ending of this story would hit as hard if the reader did not own a dog of their own.

The Tornado Auction - Tornadoes are grown at farms and one farmer deals with the mistakes of his life.

Black Corfu - A posthumous surgeon, who cuts the hamstrings of the deceased to keep them from rising from their graves is accused of making a mistake and not performing a surgery properly. As a result, the doctor must deal with the rumors that surround this error, which possibly cause him to go insane. Not my favorite of the collection.

The Gondoliers - Young mutant girls ferry passengers thru a dystopian flooded future Florida.

Orange World - A new mother makes a deal with a devil to keep her baby safe. Clearly an allegory of the fear all mothers must have about the safety of their baby.

The first four stories are the strongest for me. The Tornado Auction was an interesting idea, but didn't quite have the same punch as the first four. The final three stories are the weakest for me, especially Black Corfu. That one really didn't work at all for me. Overall, a solid collection, and even I can attest that the stories that were not to my liking are still written well. I'll be interested to read more of Karen Russell in the future.

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