About The Wonder Garden
A man strikes an under-the-table deal with a surgeon to spend a few quiet seconds closer to his wife than he’s ever been; a young soon-to-be mother looks on in paralyzing astonishment as her husband walks away from a fifteen-year career in advertising at the urging of his spirit animal; an elderly artist risks more than he knows when he’s commissioned by his newly arrived neighbors to produce the work of a lifetime.
In her stunning debut The Wonder Garden, Lauren Acampora gathers with enchanting realism the myriad lives of a suburban town and lays them bare. These intricately interwoven stories take a trenchant look at the flawed people of Old Cranbury, the supposedly ordinary lives they lead, and the secrets they try so desperately to hide. Acampora’s characters are neighbors, lovers, friends, who, beneath their dreamy suburban surface, are nothing like they appear. These incisive tales reveal at each turn the unseen battles we play out behind drawn blinds, the creeping truths from which we distract ourselves, and the massive dreams we haul quietly with us and hold close.
Deliciously creepy and masterfully choreographed, The Wonder Garden heralds the arrival of a phenomenal new talent in American fiction.
Buy The Wonder Garden
The Wonder Garden is available in both hardcover and paperback through the following online retailers, and at your local bookstore.
Praise for The Wonder Garden
"I thought of [Edith] Wharton when reading Lauren Acampora's stylish debut..." -Alix Ohlin, New York Times Book Review
"Acampora's ability to lay bare the heartaches of complex individuals within an utterly unique imaginative world is worthy of high praise." - Priscilla Gilman, The Boston Globe
"In 13 sharply drawn linked stories, Acampora reveals the complexities beneath the polish and privilege of a prosperous Connecticut town." - People Magazine
"...well-drawn characters, interesting plots, cultural zingers and dead-on critiques of consumerism...Acampora delivers a page-turner." - Martha Sheridan, The Dallas Morning News
"A wonderful debut by a striking talent." -Chris Schluep, Amazon.com
"This debut demands to be savored. Editor's recommendation." -Barnes & Noble
"A smashing debut, with range, subtlety and bite. Reading Acampora, we're In Cheever country, with hints of Flannery O'Connor." -Jane Ciabattari, BBC
"The Wonder Garden...carries a razor-sharp edge of dark satire and lands Acampora firmly on my list of writers to watch." - Poornima Apte, Book Browse
"[Acampora's] well-plotted, incisive and beautifully written fiction will encourage all of us to think about how our lives intersect with our neighbors', like it or not." - Nora Piehl, Book Reporter
"Prose...nothing short of masterful." - Christopher Schultz, Lit Reactor
"A magnificent debut." - David Gutowski, Largehearted Boy
"A smartly written and satisfying collection." - Zack Ravas, ZYZZYVA
"Intelligent, unnerving, and very often strange." -Publishers Weekly (starred, boxed review)
"Spooky and fabulous... A clear-eyed lens into the strange, human wants of upper-class suburbia." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Acampora wields prose with the precision of a scalpel . . . [She] brilliantly captures the heartaches and delusions of American suburbanites.” -Booklist (starred review)
"The stories in Acampora's first collection are so vivid, tightly plotted, and expertly woven that they make you look forward to reading more by this accomplished author." -Library Journal (starred review)
"The world depicted in Lauren Acampora’s stories seems reassuringly familiar, until it becomes unaccountably strange and unsettling. One moment we seem to be in Cheever’s Westchester, the next we plunge through the looking glass into realms that may remind some readers of George Saunders or Robert Coover or the David Lynch of Blue Velvet, though, inevitably, all resemblances prove to be superficial. Acampora is an original and The Wonder Garden is an outstanding debut."
- Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City and How It Ended
"A dark and brilliant collection of stories. Lauren Acampora is a terrific writer."
- Joseph O'Neill, Netherland and The Dog
"Here in the suburb of Old Cranbury, where the lawns are carefully tended and life is coated with a veneer of normalcy, Lauren Acampora shines a bright light on the mysteries of human emotions. These perceptive, riveting stories give us the opportunity to explore the hidden tumult of a prosperous community and to discover its dramatic secrets."
- Joanna Scott, De Potter’s Grand Tour
"Like the famous opening scene in Blue Velvet, Lauren Acampora's The Wonder Garden pulls us under the surface of that most carefully tended American garden, the prosperous suburb, to lay bare its dark underbelly. The Wonder Garden is wondrous, and its stories are addictive. I dreaded coming to the end."
- Susan Choi, My Education
"The Wonder Garden is a beautiful book: witty, intelligent, deeply compassionate, and gorgeously crafted. Lauren Acampora is uncannily skilled at chronicling the emotional lives of her characters with the same razor-sharp precision as she does the suburban landscape that surrounds them. I can't stop thinking about these stories."
- Molly Antopol, The UnAmericans
"Acampora's linked stories about one Connecticut town vividly explore dark interiors as well as polished facades. The Wonder Garden is an elegant construction and a chronicle of the surprising ways in which suburban lives intersect. Lauren Acampora is a writer of extraordinary dexterity."
- Elliott Holt, You Are One of Them
"I loved The Wonder Garden. Acampora's writing moves like a laser through her characters' souls, finding the deepest, darkest truths and delusions. Every story surprises. Every story is devastating. Like Mad Men set in the present day, but better."
- Heidi Pitlor, The Daylight Marriage