Review
------
"Wilson is a remarkable writer...One of his greatest
strengths is the ability to craft an everyday family drama and
inject it with one odd element that turns the story on its head.
He's done it again here, writing once more about family but with
some most unusual children and a particularly charming narrator."
- Kirkus Reviews
"Wilson turns a bizarre premise into a beguiling novel about
unexpected motherhood…Wilson captures the wrenching emotions of
caring for children in this exceptional, and exceptionally
hilarious, novel."
- Publishers Weekly
"The novel is a love letter to the weirdness and difficulties of
children and parenting...[a] story of a family that is as
delightfully bizarre as it is heartfelt and true."
- Library Journal
"Slighter in scale than Wilson's previous novels, this one is
powered, like his strange and funny short stories, by an element
of fantasy. Lillian tells the story, revealing immediately that
she's another of Wilson's normal extraordinary protagonists..She
fills the book with her wry humour and large, embracing heart as
she ponders the love of friendship and the love of family and
then acts on what she discovers."
- Booklist
"His most outlandish - and curiously affecting - premise yet."
- Entertainment Weekly
"Weird, funny, but also unexpectedly moving… An affecting
reflection on the blithe cruelty of the rich and what it means to
be a good parent."
- BuzzFeed
"Inventive... The bonds [Lillian] forms with the children inform
her of the costs of abandonment and durability of love."
- Time
"Quirky and inful, strange and delightful."
- -- PopSugar
'Good Lord, I can't believe how good this book is... It's wholly
original. It's also perfect... Wilson writes with such a light
touch that it seems fairly impossible for the book to have a big
emotional payoff. But there is, and that's the brilliance of the
novel - that it distracts you with these weirdo characters
and mesmerizing and funny sentences and then hits you in a way
you didn't see coming. You're laughing so hard you don't even
realize that you've suddenly caught fire.' --- New York Times
'Wilson's observational humor is riotous in its specificity, his
descriptions as generous as fistfuls of Halloween candy at the
best house on the block.'
-USA Today
'Wilson understands the mixture of affection and embarrassment
that runs through all loving families. His satire is always
marbled with tenderness...[this is] his most perfect novel.
Paradoxically light and melancholy, it hews to the border of
fantasy but stays in the land of realism.'
-Washington Post
'[A] deadpan, hilarious modern fairy tale complete
with impoverished heroine, cruel princess and neglected children
with magical powers... You'll close the covers with a smile.' ---
Newsday
About the Author
----------------
Kevin Wilson is the author of the collections Tunneling to the
Center of the Earth, which received an Alex Award from the
American Library Association and the Shirley Jackson Award,
and Baby, You're Gonna Be Mine, as well as two novels: The Family
Fang and Perfect Little World. He lives with his family in
Sewanee, Tennessee, where he is an associate professor in the
English department at the University of the South.