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THE CALL
by YANNICK MURPHY
"A triumph of quiet humor and understated beauty. ... Murphy's subtle, wry wit and an appealing sense for the surreal leaven moments of anger and bleakness, and elevate moments of kindness, whimsy, and grace."
-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"This is a wonderful novel. Original, suspenseful, funny, and profoundly moving. It's about family, community, the human bond with animals, and--oh yeah--spaceships. I am in awe of Yannick Murphy's achievement and I plan to recommend to everyone I know."
-- Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Caleb's Crossing
"Yannick Murphy's beautiful new novel is a stirring example of what a real writer,can do with form and feeling. The Call is sly, funny, scary, honest, wonderstruck and, most of all, intensely generous."
-- Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask
"This book delights with its discrete structuring. ... The pieces snap together in odd juxtaposition, surprising, making a picture more sturdy and dependable than the seamless whole. It has the power of good old Byzantine mosaic."
-- Padgett Powell, author of The Interrogative Mood
"Yannick Murphy's The Call, about a family dealing with the consequences of a tragic accident, explores marriage, parenthood, small-town life, medicine, and hope with a sensitivity, skill, and fearlessness that will rattle your bones."
-- Ben Greenman, author of Celebrity Chekhov and What He's Poised to Do
"The Call is an enormously affecting and lovely exploration of ordinary and extraordinary love. In prose that is as grand, startling, and particular as the New England landscape that inhabits her characters as much as they inhabit it, Yannick Murphy tells a story that will break and repair your heart."
-- Chris Adrian, author of The Great Night
Open Books Radio Interview
http://www.openbooksradio.org/interviews.htm
SIGNED, MATA HARI
by YANNICK MURPHY
"[An] alluring novel, ... hypnotic [and as] softly poetic as it is insistent, [Signed, Mata Hari] entices the reader from the first lines to give Mata Hari what she always craved: not the secrets that are the currency of a spy, but the rapt attention that is oxygen to a performer."
-- Starred Review, Publisher?s Weekly
"In the fictionalized confessional Signed, Mata Hari, Yannick Murphy reincarnates the legendary seductress who was accused of being a double agent in World War I, giving her a lyrical voice and an irrepressible vivacity... Most of the twists and gyrations take place on the page, not the stage, [and by] the time her last morning arrives and she walks out to face a French firing squad -- sans blindfold -- we feel as besotted with this passionate, provocative woman as were the rest of her hapless admirers."
-- Corrie Pikul, ELLE
"Does the literary world need another fictional tribute to Mata Hari? If it is penned by the inimitable Murphy, the answer is yes. [A] seductive narrative, ... Murphy has fashioned a mesmerizing novel that creatively reimagines the life of one of the most notorious, and perhaps overvilified, women of all time."
-- Booklist
"In Signed, Mata Hari, Yannick Murphy once again treats us to her luscious signature lyric style, its whispers and perfumes, in this time- and space-bending tale of the famous dancer and accused spy."
-- Janet Fitch, author of Paint it Black and White Oleander
"Yannick Murphy, while being one of our most daring and original writers, is first and foremost an exquisitely attuned observer of human behavior. Her characters are so richly imagined and believable that when you?re finished with ... her book, you expect to find her characters? names in the phone book. Murphy?s work provides pretty much unexceeded reading pleasure."
-- Dave Eggers, author of What Is the What and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
"This impressionistic, erotic novel ... probes beneather the well-known facts of Mata Hari?s life ... to evoke the pleasure and sustenance in her experiences and the poetry in the mystery of whether she really was a spy."
-- Thelma Adams, More
"More stunning, even, than this lush, luscious, prose is how Yannick Murphy
turns preconceived notions inside out. Rendered with great insight and compassion, Murphy's Mata Hari is revealed, not as a spy, but as a sympathetic and intensely complicated woman. A wife, a mother, a lover, an artist, she is worthy of our admiration and of our hearts. Signed, Mata Hari is a thrilling and a devastating novel."
-- Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of An Almost Perfect Moment
"Brilliant in its structure, beautiful in its language, rich in its characterization, Yannick Murphy?s new novel, Signed, Mata Hari, also happens to have at its center one of the most fascinating figures of the early twentieth century, a woman who ached deeply and searched intensely for an identity. In Murphy?s masterful hands, this quest is tenderly and movingly rendered."
-- Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
"The award-winning Murphy [has created in] Mata Hari a fictional persona marked by sensitivity, desperation, and longing. Murphy effectively builds tension concerning Mata Hari's fate. ...The novel is as fascinating as Mata Hari herself and occasionally brilliant in the way it re-creates her life...."
-- Library Journal
"Intense, atmospheric and erotic, this is more prose poem than historical novel."
-- Kirkus
"The life of the legendary French dancer and femme fatale is brilliantly captured in this impressionistic novel. [A] compelling portrait ...[and] mesmerizing read."
-- John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"In this enticing tale, we encounter [Mata Hari] in a guise her accusers never saw: desperate mother."
-- Good Housekeeping
"[Mata Hari] proves that she can be just as seductive in print as she apparently was in person. ... By the close of Murphy's extraordinary yarn, Mata Hari can't escape the business end of a rifle, but neither can the reader escape doubts about her infamy."
-- J. Kingston Pierce, Washington CEO
UK Reviews
"Vivid and compelling"
-- The Independent
"This beautifully written, cleverly imagined and sympathetic retelling of the story ... draws the reader into a tragic story, [entering] the psychology of a woman whose whole life has become a lie. Erotically explicit, poignant and sad, this contribution to the Mata Hari myth may well be nearer the truth than most."
-- Peter Millar, The Times
"Yannick Murphy's novel is a vivid reimagining of [the Mata Hari] myth, creating a portrait of a clever, sensual woman.... In evocative, erotic prose, Murphy describes the transformation of Marguerite Zelle from an irrepressible Dutch girl to beautiful Mata Hari -- 'the eye of dawn, the sunrise'. ...Filled with poignant detail [and] lush, precise descriptions. ... Compelling."
-- Eithne Farry, Daily Mail
"Mata Hari has long been associated with the wily eroticism of femmes fatales. But Yannick Murphy is intent on discovering the woman behind the myth in this sensitive, imaginative reworking of her life. ... Murphy gives this tumultuous life a dreamlike quality. The heat of Indonesia mirrors the passion of Mata Hari's affairs and the way the lush forest becomes entangled with her grief works to brilliant effect."
-- Zena Alkayat, Metro UK
"Captivating... Murphy seduces readers with her prose. This elegantly crafted novel keeps you guessing until Mata Hari?s last moments."
-- Sunday Express
"Nice one, Yannick"
-- Jon Wise, Daily Sport
"Dreamlike"
-- The Gloss
"Sensuous and fiercely intelligent"
-- Waterstone's Books Quarterly
"This is a sensitive re-imagining of Mata Hari's life, its legendary associations and its sorry ending."
-- Sunday Business Post
Signed, Mata Hari
ISBN: 9780316112642
November, 2007
HERE THEY COME
by YANNICK MURPHY
Splitting time between a ramshackle apartment and a lonely hot dog vendor, the observant thirteen-year-old who stands steadily at the center of Here They Come gives lyrical voice to an unforgettable instant -- 1970s New York, stifling, violent, and full of life. Balanced between her enigmatic siblings, borderline parents, and a quiet sense of the surreal, she recounts a year of startling moments with dark humor and deadpan resilience. By Yannick Murphy, author of the New York Times Notable Book The Sea of Trees.
"This is a hell of a book. You might not be able to finish Here They Come in one sitting, but it will haunt you till you do. What detail! What characters! I can imagine both Jane Austen and Raymond Carver poring over this masterly novel."
-- FRANK MCCOURT, AUTHOR OF ANGELA'S ASHES
""Yannick Murphy is a uniquely talented writer who manages to turn everything on its head and make dark, funny, shocking and beautiful prose out of the detritus of growing up poor, fatherless, and cockeyed. She is fearless."
-- LILY TUCK, WINNER OF THE 2004 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
"Yannick Murphy's long-awaited Here They Come is a unique combination of rare linguistic lyricism with brutal and brilliant prose. It is an unrelenting portrait of family, terrifying for its honesty, its willingness to be ugly and elegant. Haunting."
-- A.M. HOMES, AUTHOR OF THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS AND MUSIC FOR TORCHING
"Told by a precocious unnamed 13-year-old girl who bends spoons with her mind, Murphy's gorgeous third book of fiction recounts the story of a poor family¿s coming-of-age in 1970s New York. In thick, poetic prose that edges toward stream of consciousness and is peppered with slightly surreal details, Murphy creates a world as magical and harrowing as the struggle to come to grips with maturity."
-- Publisher's Weekly, starred review
"Yannick Murphy creates a narrator with a unique, sometimes shocking perspective. Murphy's startling language and imagery accumulate great power as they hurtle toward the reader.¿
-- People Magazine
"Murphy flawlessly captures a child's-eye view of a battered society and a battered family. The spare elegance of her prose contrasts so jarringly with the sordid physical landscape that it inspires an unsettling sense of disconnect, which is almost certainly the point. Most impressive of all is Murphy's remarkable use of language, the expressive way she puts together ordinary words and images to create surprisingly lovely and moving metaphors."
-- Wendy Smith, LA Times
"Here They Come [is] a novel which decenters the familiar -- pushes it through the looking glass to the point of acceptance, humor, and maybe even awe. Murphy's prose is poetic, quirky, and a little breathless, but it is also tremendously strong, and both grounded and moving. Murphy wields dialogue like a pro, as well; her tone is fairly light, given some of the subject matter, but with DeLillo-esque artistry, she hides daggers just beneath the surface. Here They Come is a funny, genuine, and smart novel from a writer to keep an eye on."
-- Jill Owens, Powell's
"A girl on the verge searches for her father in Yannick Murphy's shockingly funny Here They Come."
-- Vanity Fair
"[A] mixture of naturalism and surrealism [that] is intriguing-and well written."
-- Booklist
"Narrated by a 13-year-old girl living in 1970s New York, Here They Come by Yannick Murphy brings pluck and humor as well as a virtuoso writing-style to a novel about a family. ¿ It¿s a dangerous world, but our narrator doesn¿t spend time wishing things were any different. Instead she navigates, she negotiates, she says fuck like she¿s seen it all, and then she says or does something to remind you that she is only thirteen and has just enough experience to get herself in trouble. Here They Come is a wonderfully realized book, beautifully packaged by McSweeney's."
-- Emily Nesbitt, Grace Book Club: Recommended Reading for March 2006
Yannick Murphy is the author of Stories in Another Language and The Sea of Trees. She has received a Whiting Writer's Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Mac-Dowell Artists' Colony Fellowship, a Sewanee Writers' Conference fellowship, and a Chesterfield Writing Program Fellowship. She lives in Pasadena, California, with her husband and three children and is in the process of moving to Reading, Vermont.
MARCH
256 pages, hardcover, $22
McSWEENEY'S
