Judy Budnitz

The astonishing Orange Prize-shortlisted debut from the author of ‘Flying Leap’ and ‘Nice Big American Baby’.

If I Told You Once

Flying Leap

Elena leaves her home in Eastern Europe to travel to America and a new world, living an adventure that eventually includes her daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter, who share her gifts and hardships. Winner of The Edward Lewis Wallant Book Award. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

A Novel

The author of If I Told You Once presents a poignant, richly varied anthology of modern fables that journey from suburban backyards and swimming pools to fallout shelters in wartorn cities, in a collection that includes "Flush," "Elephant and Boy," "Nadia," "Preparedness," "Where We Come From," and seven other tales. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

Nice Big American Baby

Aimee Bender

Rick Moody

Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum

The literary magazine people are talking about

Fantastic Women

Tin House

In her utterly original novel about mothers, daughters, and love, Judy Budnitz gives the traditional folktale an electrifying twist as she follows four generations of women from an Eastern European village to the tenements of an American city. Elena, born into a family ruled by a formidable mother, embarks on an epic journey to the New World, met along the way by evil, magic, and good fortune. The daughter, grand-daughter, and great-granddaughter who follow each share her special powers of observation and, often, destruction. The result is a family saga unlike any other: a hilarious, heartbreaking story of family ties that bind.

A surreal collection of stories from the author of Flying Leap.

The Brothers Grimm take lessons in fiction from Angela Carter to produce this uncanny and surreal work.

‘Unforgettable and utterly affecting. You can’t turn the pages fast enough’ Dave Eggers

A blazingly original, profoundly moving new work of fiction by a writer whose world–and imagination–knows no boundaries. “I don’t know what planet Judy Budnitz comes from,” said Newsweek on the publication of her fiction debut, Flying Leap, “but I’m happy to have her. Tremendous . . . funny, dark, adventurous, slanted, and enchanted.” These twelve astonishingly inventive stories–which take us into the heart of America and around the globe, from suburban backyards and swimming pools to war-torn streets and fallout shelters–are riveting, seductive, and impossible to forget. In “Flush,” a mammogram prompts a dark comedy of blurred identities between a mother and her two adult daughters. In “Elephant and Boy,” a surrogate mother-and-son bond, tinged with the erotic, is formed when a philanthropist attempts to “civilize” a young elephant handler. “Nadia” sounds the depths of a young woman’s complex feelings toward a friend’ s mail-order bride from Eastern Europe. “Preparedness”–an Orwellian tale in Technicolor–imagines rapture in the wake of imminent apocalypse. And in “Where We Come From,” a pregnant woman’s many failed attempts to cross the border do not lessen her resolve to give birth on U.S. soil to a “nice big American baby.” Magical, poignant, often transcendent, these are virtuoso modern fables that mine our stores of hidden urges, misunderstandings, and blind passions, inviting us on a voyage through places and times at once deeply familiar and wondrously strange.

Judy Budnitz

Books

Your next favorite book is out there