RaveSlateThis situation is as unsustainable as it is thrilling—but what are they to do? It is, after all, London in 1922: not an impossible milieu for two women in love, but certainly an inhospitable one. Frances, it emerges, has already given up a great deal—a relationship with another young woman, a writer and activist—to take care of her mother and do all that housework. Sacrifice is in the air, as everyone has sacrificed in the war … The drawn-out noir tale that The Paying Guests becomes is a chilly one, despite the heat at its center. Both Frances and Lilian can seem callous, preoccupied with each other to the point that they don’t care who else gets hurt … But perhaps that’s just what happens when you return to an era where sacrifice was demanded and trace the course of ordinary self-fulfillment instead—this being the modern moral high ground for a woman who falls in love with another woman.
Téa Obreht
RaveThe Boston GlobeThis novel illuminates a young narrator coming to terms with the deaths of beloved relatives, of strangers, of old ways. But it is also about discovering what is immortal: not just the vampires of local legend, but also love and cultural memory … Obreht seems to suggest that even those we love remain inscrutable, a composite of experiences we can never wholly share … The Tiger’s Wife is full of vivid, dreamlike scenes that conjure a place wracked with conflict … Obreht’s mesmerizing writing is key to this novel, which succeeds through a kind of harmonic resonance more than a driving plot. For all its historical and mythological specificity, The Tiger’s Wife is content to let ambiguities remain; Obreht is one fabulist who doesn’t need a moral at the end of her tales
Valeria Luiselli
PositiveSlateOn one hand, the book features highbrow 'allegories' based on works by Jumex collection artists like Olafur Eliasson...On the other, Luiselli is emulating crowd-pleasing serial fiction writers of the 19th century...and so even those weird allegories tend toward the rollicking and personable.
