Overview

From the O. Henry Prize-winning author of Rainey Royal, a radiant, disquieting new linked story collection that spans decades and generations as it explores desire, damage, and dislocation amongst members of New York City's artistic and unstable Royal family. For fans of Mary Gaitskill and Lauren Groff. A dazzling novel in stories following Rainey Royal-a young artist coming of age through the tumult of New York City in the '70s and '80s-and her family across generations of obsession, betrayal, and reinvention, written with the trademark beauty and precision of Dylan Landis. For fans of Mary Gaitskill and Lauren Groff. In postwar Paris, over the course of one fateful day, a boy's crush on his nanny ignites into a destructive passion that burns into his memory and reveals to him the disquieting world of adult secrets. In 1950s New York City, a naive caretaker struggles to protect her charge, a married woman paralyzed by her recent stroke, as new bruises appear each day on her body. In the 1970s, a fragile cousin wanders into the Royal family's chaotic jazz-filled townhouse, where music, sex, and ruin intertwine. And at the heart of these stories is Rainey Royal herself, coming of age in Greenwich Village, inventing herself as an artist through the tumult of the '70s and '80s. By turns shocking, erotic, and deeply humane, List of All Possible Desires is a haunting portrait of family and history. It is joined by the expanded re-issues of the novel Rainey Royal and the novel in stories Normal People Don't Live Like This to create the Rainey Royal Cycle. Each book stands on its own, yet together they echo and amplify each other, creating a world of almost unbearable richness and intensity.

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9781641297325

Table of Contents

Reviews

Praise for the Rainey Royal cycle ""[Rainey is] achingly vulnerable and cruelly intimidating.” —The New York Times Book Review ""Dylan Landis's Rainey Royal is like its heroine: fierce, winning, and sharp as a blade."" —Vanity Fair ""Rainey will remain in my mind forever as one of my favorite characters."" —ELLE

Praise for List of All Possible Desires “Dazzling, electrifying, and razor-sharp, this collection brilliantly expands Dylan Landis’s New York of the 1970s and ’80s, a world where fragile, defiant girls grow into clear-eyed, truth-seeking women. Gorgeously crafted and fearlessly told—I savored every page.” —Natalie Baszile, author of Queen Sugar “Dylan Landis is the quintessential bard of the do-it-yourself morality of the seventies, its experiments and failures. These twelve stories achingly demonstrate how wounded children become wounding adults, toggling between states of burn-it-to-the-ground rebellion and moments of pure grace.” —Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander ""These stories have the elegance and assurance of classics—individual jewels strung together into a stunning and mesmeric whole."" —Dan Chaon, author of One of Us ""The entwined, can’t-put-them-down stories of The List of All Possible Desires expand and relayer the endlessly compelling world of Rainey Royal. Rainey is all of us, our longings and contradictions, our frailties and strengths, our determination to take our mess of a life into our own hands and make of it an authentic work of art. These stories slice your heart in two—but then Landis heals and inspires with her exquisite prose, deep insight, and literary grace."" —Tara Ison, author of At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf Praise for the Rainey Royal cycle ""[Rainey is] achingly vulnerable and cruelly intimidating.” —The New York Times Book Review ""Dylan Landis's Rainey Royal is like its heroine: fierce, winning, and sharp as a blade."" —Vanity Fair ""Rainey will remain in my mind forever as one of my favorite characters."" —ELLE

Praise for List of All Possible Desires ""A dazzling cycle of stories revolving around a complicated, fascinating, talented young badass... Other people write with words; Landis seems to write with mercury."" —Kirkus, Starred Review “Dazzling, electrifying, and razor-sharp, this collection brilliantly expands Dylan Landis’s New York of the 1970s and ’80s, a world where fragile, defiant girls grow into clear-eyed, truth-seeking women. Gorgeously crafted and fearlessly told—I savored every page.” —Natalie Baszile, author of Queen Sugar “The Rainey Royal books are the greatest literary puzzle since the Neapolitan Quartet, full of complex relationships among women and within families, revealing their full meaning only once you place the final piece.” —Pamela Redmond, New York Times bestselling author of Younger “Dylan Landis is the quintessential bard of the do-it-yourself morality of the seventies, its experiments and failures. These twelve stories achingly demonstrate how wounded children become wounding adults, toggling between states of burn-it-to-the-ground rebellion and moments of pure grace.” —Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander “These stories have the elegance and assurance of classics—individual jewels strung together into a stunning and mesmeric whole.” —Dan Chaon, author of One of Us “The entwined, can’t-put-them-down stories of List of All Possible Desires expand and relayer the endlessly compelling world of Rainey Royal. Rainey is all of us, our longings and contradictions, our frailties and strengths, our determination to take our mess of a life into our own hands and make of it an authentic work of art. These stories slice your heart in two—but then Landis heals and inspires with her exquisite prose, deep insight, and literary grace.” —Tara Ison, author of At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf Praise for the Rainey Royal cycle ""[Rainey is] achingly vulnerable and cruelly intimidating.” —The New York Times Book Review ""Dylan Landis's Rainey Royal is like its heroine: fierce, winning, and sharp as a blade."" —Vanity Fair ""Rainey will remain in my mind forever as one of my favorite characters."" —ELLE

Author Information

Dylan Landis is the author of the novel Rainey Royal, a New York Times Editors' Choice, and the novel in stories Normal People Don't Live Like This, both in the Rainey Royal Cycle. Her work has appeared in the O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and other anthologies. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in fiction and lives in Los Angeles.

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