There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby : Scary Fairy Tales

New York Times Bestseller Winner of the World Fantasy Award One of New York magazine’s 10 Best Books of the Year One of NPR’s 5 Best Works of Foreign FictionThe celebrated scary fairy tales of Russia’s preeminent contemporary fiction writer—the author of the prizewinning memoir about growing up in Stalinist Russia, The Girl from the Metropol Hotel Vanishings and aparitions, nightmares and twists of fate, mysterious ailments and supernatural interventions haunt these stories by the Russian master Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, heir to the spellbinding tradition of Gogol and Poe. Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous gallows humor, these bewitching tales are like nothing being written in Russia—or anywhere else in the world—today. Masterworks Of Economy And Acuity, These Brief, Trenchant Tales By Russian Author And Playwright Petrushevskaya, Selected From Her Wide-ranging But Little Translated Oeuvre Over The Past 30 Years, Offer An Enticement To English Readers To Seek Out More Of Her Writing. The Tales Explore The Inexplicable Workings Of Fate, The Supernatural, Grief And Madness, And Range From Adroit, Straightforward Narratives To Bleak Fantasy. Frequently On Display Are The Decrepit Values Of The Soviet System, As In The New Family Robinson, Where A Family Tries To Outsmart Everyone By Relocating To A Ramshackle Cabin In The Country. Domestic Problems Get Powerful And Tender Treatment; In My Love, A Long-suffering Wife And Mother Triumphs Over Her Husband's Desire For Another Woman. Darker Material Dominates The Last Section Of The Book, With Tortuous Stories, Heavy Symbolism And Outright Weirdness Leading To Strange And Unexpected Places. Petrushevskaya's Bold, No-nonsense Portrayals Find Fresh, Arresting Expression In This Excellent Translation. Introduction -- Songs Of The Eastern Slavs -- Arm -- Revenge -- Incident At Sokolniki -- Mother's Farewell -- Allegories -- Hygiene -- New Soul -- New Robinson Crusoes: A Chronicle Of The End Of The Twentieth Century -- Miracle -- Requiems -- God Poseidon -- My Love -- Fountain House -- Shadow Life -- Two Kingdoms -- There's Someone In The House -- Fairy Tales. Father -- Cabbage-patch Mother -- Marilena's Secret -- Old Monk's Testament -- Black Coat. By Ludmilla Petrushevskaya ; Selected And Translated With An Introduction By Keith Gessen And Anna Summers. EDITORIAL REVIEW: **The literary event of Halloween: a book of otherworldly power from Russia's preeminent contemporary fiction writer** Vanishings and aparitions, nightmares and twists of fate, mysterious ailments and supernatural interventions haunt these stories by the Russian master Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, heir to the spellbinding tradition of Gogol and Poe. Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous gallows humor, these bewitching tales are like nothing being written in Russia-or anywhere else in the world-today. The literary event of Halloween: a book of otherworldly power from Russia's preeminent contemporary fiction writer Vanishings and apparitions, nightmares and twists of fate, mysterious ailments and supernatural interventions haunt these stories by the Russian master Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, heir to the spellbinding tradition of Gogol and Poe. Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous gallows humor, these bewitching tales are like nothing being written in Russia-or anywhere else in the world-today. The stories in this collection were published in Russian in Novy Mir, Ogonyok, Literaturnaya Gazeta and other periodicals. "Father" and "Two Kindgdoms" first appeared in n+1; "The Arm", "Incident at Sokolniki" and "A Mother's Farewell" in Vice; and "The Fountain House" in The New Yorker.