The New York Times Book Review on Sigrid Nunez's "satisfying" Salvation City

Abraham Verghese reviews Sigrid Nunez's Salvation City in the pages of The New York Times Book Review: “Nunez tells a fine tale, avoiding clichés and providing powerful insights. To our surprise, we are equally drawn to the Wyatt family and to Cole’s dead parents: being fallible is what they have in common. Through Cole’s eyes, the redemption offered by religion is offset by its hypocrisy; he finds his enlightenment not from dogma but from his own painful experiences. By the end of this satisfying, provocative and very plausible novel, Cole doesn’t believe that the world is about to end. Instead ‘he saw himself living a long time and going many places and doing many different things. ‘Your whole life ahead of you’—never more than just an expressing before—now came to him with the ring of blessing." More...

The Boston Globe on Sigrid Nunez's Salvation City

"Nunez’s writing is gorgeously spare, and she gets the life and the lingo of a teenage boy just right. . . . In this gorgeously strange and apocalyptic coming-of-age novel, Nunez shows that the end of the world can offer a powerful possibility for a new beginning." More...

More Magazine on Sigrid Nunez's Salvation City

“It’s the near future, and Evangelicals have flocked to the rural Indiana town of the title, a post-apocalyptic haven in a world ravaged by a flu pandemic. Among these sheltered souls is Cole Vining, 13, an orphan who has been taken in by a preacher and his ditzy wife. Brought up by atheist parents in Chicago, Cole is disoriented by small-town life. . . . In this highly recognizable portrait of adolescent angst, Cole learns to define faith and freedom on his own terms as Nunez offers a candid look at both the comforts of religion and the glaring hypocrisy of some of its mosst ardent practicioners.”—More

The New York Times on Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans and Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez

The New York Times included two Riverhead titles in its pages today: Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans and Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez. More...

On Evans's book: "The most vivid characters in Danielle Evans’s story collection are in-betweeners: between girlhood and womanhood; between the black middle class and Ivy League privilege; between iffy boyfriends and those even less reliable; between an extended family and living on your own. To say they’re caught between worlds isn’t quite accurate, though; they tend to be hard-headed, sadder but wiser and, most of all, funny."

 

On Nunez's book: "With a cool, evenhanded tone, Ms. Nunez conjures a near future dark around the edges; during the outbreak, people personalize their germ-protecting surgical masks with silly drawings of lips or vampire fangs, “but a homeless man caught spitting in the street was mobbed and beaten to death. And even in apocalyptic times, parents worry whether a 13-year-old should be spending so much time online."

Gawker.com lists Riverhead authors in a What To Read This Fall list

Three Riverhead authors were picked by Gawker as books to read this fall. Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans, Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez, and How To Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu were all chosen by Gawker's editors as among the fall's most interesting titles. More...

O, the Oprah Magazine on Sigrid Nunez's "wise and richly humane" Salvation CIty

“A flu pandemic kills millions and leaves surviviors to a chaos of shortages, looting, and violence—and that’s just the beginning of Sigrid Nunez’s wise and richly humane coming-of-age novel.” —O, the Oprah Magazine

Vanity Fair on Sigrid Nunez's "timely and thought-provoking" Salvation City

Vanity Fair gushed about Sigrid Nunez's forthcoming novel, Salvation City (which comes out on 9/16/10), in their September 2010 issue: "Salvation City is not only timely and thought-provoking but also generous in its understanding of human nature. When the apocalypse comes, I want Nunez in my lifeboat." Read more about Sigrid and Salvation City here...