LONGLISTED FOR THE STORY PRIZE
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Bustle and Lit Hub
A fiercely empathetic group portrait of the marginalized and outcast in
moments of crisis, from one of the most galvanizing voices in American
fiction.
Lidia Yuknavitch is a writer of rare insight into the jagged boundaries
between pain and survival. Her characters are scarred by the unchecked
hungers of others and themselves, yet determined to find salvation
within lives that can feel beyond their control. In novels such as The
Small Backs of Children and The Book of Joan, she has captivated
readers with stories of visceral power. Now, in Verge, she offers a
shard-sharp mosaic portrait of human resilience on the margins.
The landscape of Verge is peopled with characters who are innocent and
imperfect, wise and endangered: an eight-year-old black-market medical
courier, a restless lover haunted by memories of his mother, a teenage
girl gazing out her attic window at a nearby prison, all of them wounded
but grasping toward transcendence. Clear-eyed yet inspiring, Verge
challenges us with moments of uncomfortable truth, even as it urges us
to place our faith not in the flimsy guardrails of society but in the
memories held--and told--by our own individual bodies.
