{"product_id":"dear-fang-with-love-isbn-9781101911570","title":"Dear Fang, With Love","description":"Lucas and Katya were seniors when they made the impetuous decision to have a baby. Seventeen years later, Lucas is now only a weekend dad, newly involved in his daughter Vera's life after a decade of absence. But when Vera suffers a terrifying psychotic break at a high school party, Lucas makes another impulsive decision: he takes her to Lithuania, his grandmother's homeland. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Here, in the city of Vilnius, Lucas hopes to save Vera from the sorrow of her diagnosis, but while he uncovers a secret about his grandmother's WWII past, Vera searches for answers of her own. Why did Lucas abandon her as a baby? What really happened the night of her breakdown? And who can she trust with the truth?“A hauntingly beautiful novel about a father and daughter. . . . The story grapples with absentee fathers, legendary matriarchs, mental illness, theodicy, adolescent love, and the persistence of hope in the face of suffering, and somehow, Thorpe weaves all these threads together into an enthralling narrative that has me desperate to keep turning the page.” —Robin Wasserman, \u003ci\u003eMiami Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A deeply-detailed, beautiful, often hilarious novel. . . . Utterly original.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Huffington Post \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e“Beautiful. . . . A family vacation narrative with far more depth and nuance than a typical beach read but a perfectly welcome addition to a beach tote all the same.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Blends the cultural history of \u003ci\u003eThe Tiger's Wife\u003c\/i\u003e with the madcap energy of Dave Eggers.” —\u003ci\u003eBookPage \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  “Thorpe is a major talent, and reading her work will bring to mind other writers … like Donna Tartt or Ann Patchett.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Seattle Review of Books \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Vera and Lucas and their tour companions will live on in the reader’s imagination, all of them longing for something that seems out of reach. . . . Definitely an author to watch.” —\u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eWashington Times \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“Refreshing and impressive.”\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBrooklyn \u003c\/i\u003emagazine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  “Thorpe manages to tackle dark issues—estranged families, mental illness, and failed relationships—with a unique sense of humor and big-hearted empathy.” \u003ci\u003e—Electric Literature\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “This book weaves an emotional web that will draw you in completely.” —Bustle \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  “Tremendous. . . . Showcase[s] Thorpe’s fabulous versatility, insight, and humor. . . . An absolute winner.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cb\u003eRUFI THORPE\u003c\/b\u003e received her MFA from the University of Virginia in 2009. Her first novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Girls from Corona del Mar, \u003c\/i\u003ewas long-listed for the 2014 International Dylan Thomas Prize and for the 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. She lives in California with her husband and sons.If you want to  know what kind of girl my daughter, Vera, was, there is a story her mother,  Katya, tells over and over. I wasn’t there myself, but it is part of the family  lore: little Vera, five years old, her dark hair in braids, attending another  little girl’s birthday. It was an overly elaborate party for a five-year- old  girl, with candied violets on the cake, a gazebo, tasteful jewel-toned paper  streamers, crowns made of real flowers for each little girl to wear, and a  chalkboard listing a schedule of party games in cursive script.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut it  was a hot day. The children were beginning to melt. No one wanted to play the  games, which seemed to be going on forever. Only the girl’s mother, wild-eyed  and possessed by the fever of party orchestration, was enthused, and she led  them through endless rounds of red rover, musical statues, even an egg-and-spoon  race. By the time a game ominously titled “Doggy, Doggy, Where’s Your Bone?” was  about to start, the birthday girl was crouched under a picnic table  crying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVera, ever the ambassador, ventured under there to pow- wow. The  girl was hot and hungry. She could tell the other children weren’t having fun.  The party had been going on for three hours and cake and presents were not yet  in sight. Why was her mother doing this? Couldn’t they at least do one of the  fun party games, like the piñata? Wasn’t the birthday party supposed to be about  her? But her mother didn’t even care that she was crying there under the table.  Her mother was going to make everyone play “Doggy, Doggy, Where’s Your Bone?” no  matter what.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVera patted the girl’s skinny thigh. “Maybe your mom just  doesn’t understand how you feel,” she said. And so Vera crawled out from under  the picnic table, and went and found the girl’s mother, tugging at the woman’s  dress as she was trying to explain the rules to the new game.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Excuse  me,” she said politely, “Samantha would like to open presents and eat cake now.  She doesn’t want to play games anymore.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Well, right now we are playing  games,” the girl’s mother said, leaning down to Vera’s eye level, her hands on  her knees. “We have three more to go before it will be time for cake and  presents.” She pointed at the chalkboard that listed the party  activities.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“But maybe,” Vera insisted, “you could just skip some. Maybe  you could skip to the piñata?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Samantha is welcome to join us if she  decides she wants to be a big girl. Otherwise, she can stay under the table and  cry.” Vera stared at the woman for a moment, and then said, loud enough for  everyone to hear, “If you wanted a birthday party so badly, you should have  thrown one for yourself.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVera was always just like that. Almost brutally  clear-sighted. Even as a child, she saw through people. Saw the reasons they did  things. Saw the machinery behind the façade.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs she became a teenager,  her nose for hypocrisy became even keener and her thirst for justice more  merciless. One of her high-school English teachers actually got teary-eyed  during a parent-teacher conference out of worry that Vera didn’t like her. “I  feel like she can tell that I’m not actually equipped to challenge her,” the  poor woman said. “I mean, my degree isn’t even in English, it’s in education,  and I feel like there is a real lack of depth to my analyses sometimes that Vera  senses, and honestly, I don’t blame her.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf adults were unable to keep  from seeking Vera’s good opinion, her peers didn’t have a chance. They  worshipped her in a way that made her disdainful. The fall she was sixteen, she  went to the homecoming dance in fleece footie pajamas printed with tropical fish  and convinced her boyfriend, Fang, to do the same. They looked like giant,  weird, Floridian babies. She also coerced him into memorizing a choreographed  break-dance routine with her. I worried the whole thing was deeply misguided,  but the dance number was a hit. Everyone thought wearing footie pajamas to  homecoming was hilarious and cool.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You’re a trendsetter,” I said.  \u003cbr\u003e“Ugh,” she said. “Gross.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause she wasn’t a trendsetter. No one  could hope to be like her. She was one of a kind and, because of this, very much  alone. About whether she was pleased with this state of affairs or saddened, I  was never entirely sure. Maybe she would have liked to belong. Maybe her cruelty  to the girls who would have done anything to be her friends was preemptive  because she feared they would never accept her as she was. And maybe that’s part  of why she and Fang became the way they were.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut all of this is only  speculation.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301300195557,"sku":"NP9781101911570","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781101911570.jpg?v=1767724861","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/dear-fang-with-love-isbn-9781101911570","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}