In her collection of eight short stories entitled Vampires in the Lemon Grove, author Karen Russell writes of fascinating people and their equally interesting stories. One story, for example, follows a community of girls who are held captive in a Japanese silk factory and who slowly turn into human silkworms. Another follows a family who travel to the American West to obtain land but find themselves in a a dangerous and strange situation instead.
When it was released, Vampires in the Lemon Grove received incredibly positive reviews. Kirkus Reviews said that Vampires is "Even more impressive than Russell's critically acclaimed novel." Publisher's Weekly thought similarly, writing that "Russell’s great gift—along with her antic imagination—who else would give us a barn full of ex-presidents reincarnated as horses?—is her ability to create whole landscapes and lifetimes of strangeness within the confines of a short story."
