{"product_id":"grand-rapids-isbn-9781635902570","title":"Grand Rapids","description":"\u003cb\u003eA new novel from the celebrated author of \u003ci\u003eSurveys\u003c\/i\u003e, set in the Michigan suburbs of the early 2000s.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInstalled alongside the Grand River in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, Alexander Calder’s public sculpture \u003ci\u003eLa Grande Vitesse\u003c\/i\u003e has come to symbolize the city. Tess moves there from Ypsilanti, Michigan in 2001—the same year that her mother dies, when everything begins to move, for her, in slow motion. Thrust into adolescence nearly rudderless, fifteen-year-old Tess is intoxicated, angsty, and sexually awake. A decade later, inspired by diary entries and TV reruns, she remembers this summer in the suburbs as the one that redefined her. Its echoes of death are frozen in time like the waves represented in the Calder sculpture or the concrete steps leading down to the churning river. She comes to see Grand Rapids as a collection of architecture and emblems, another home to which she cannot return.“An adept stylist, one sensitive to a generalized moral state of degradation, with all its sensual and ugly indicia. … Stagg, as almost no one else writing today, has her eyes peeled for that ‘other side where people are disposed.’”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Ann Manov, \u003ci\u003eBookforum\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Stagg’s writing is precise and unaffected, and her short chapters have the lingering effect that great songs do: Their power’s not just in the notes you hear but in the silences between.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Dave Kim, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"The novel’s most impressive accomplishment is its rendering of Tess’s grief, which is less an outpouring than a slow bleed into the general anomie of teenage life. Stagg inhabits Tess’s consciousness with a luminous deadpan, a gaze that grasps, without amusement or malice, the garish absurdities of life in West Michigan: the sad local royalty of Dutch surnames, the clever café menus offering Smashing Pumpkin lattes and Pearl Jam Danishes.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eMeghan O’Gieblyn, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Imagine a teenage wasteland in the Midwest, a girl mired in loss there as if trapped in ‘an absurdist prison.’ After the loss of her mother—‘Her life is gone; your life is changed’—and of her home, the girl is stuck and stalled, the sordid exploits of adolescence portrayed with philosophy and without self-pity. Brave, kind of dazzling, intriguing, and elegant.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Nancy Lemann, author of \u003ci\u003eLives of the Saints\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Stagg has the gift of projecting her prose so it seems to come from nowhere. \u003ci\u003eGrand Rapids\u003c\/i\u003e sounds like summer radio or opening a door to an empty room and discovering a voice still echoing around inside it. Reading it reminded me of failing to find your face in a high school yearbook, or seeing it in someone else’s: a novel that could have, maybe, happened to you, too.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Olivia Kan-Sperling, author of \u003ci\u003eLittle Pink Book\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eNatasha Stagg is the author of \u003ci\u003eSurveys: A Novel\u003c\/i\u003e (2016), \u003ci\u003eSleeveless: Fashion, Image, Media, New York 2011–2019\u003c\/i\u003e (2019), and \u003ci\u003eArtless: Stories 2019–2023\u003c\/i\u003e (2023). She lives in New York City.","brand":"Semiotext(e)","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233204252901,"sku":"NP9781635902570","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781635902570.jpg?v=1767728424","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/grand-rapids-isbn-9781635902570","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}