Hidden River: a novel
HIDDEN RIVER
ABOUT THE BOOK
Thirty-five year old Cassandra (aka Cass, Cassie, Cassidy, and Cassiopeia) Trout is going nowhere fast. Stuck in her hometown of Philadelphia, she spends her lackluster days working retail and running, and then rinse, repeat. But a surprise wedding invitation from an estranged childhood friend is set to change all that.
Sally Sellers has made it big in London and is eager to flesh out her guest list. Cass and Sally were once inseparable, sharing everything from boys to beds. But secrets polluted their friendship—particularly Cass's illicit entanglement with Sally's father, Len, which began in adolescence, and ended with his untimely death. Will the wedding finally force Cass to reckon with her painful, hidden past? Can she heal well enough to truly grow into her own adulthood? And what does healing look like when the most damaging memories are also the ones that last?
Sara Lippmann’s Hidden River is an unforgettable masterwork by a writer at the top of her game. With a timeline that toggles between the summer of 2008 and the late 80s/early 90s, this lean but bold novel casts an intimate look at grooming in the era before #metoo. A fascinating blend of tragedy and dark comedy, a work of brutal emotional truths unearthed with lightness and grace, this exquisitely charged story, at once private and political, will linger in your mind—and earn a place in your heart.
Praise for Hidden River
“In Hidden River, Sara Lippmann once again drops the reader into the nasty part of existence, ripping open our hearts to see all the liquid, dark bloodiness inside of it. Here it all is, unvarnished and painful, all seen through the eyes of one Cassie Trout, a stayer to her mother’s unmooredness, a cynic with a soft delicate core, showing us how hard it is to get up and do things while we carry atrocious truths in our every cell. Lippmann writes like no other, and it is her voice and her voice only that can tell the story of Cassie, of her brokenness, and her strength and her tiny joys, the ones that count, her moons and stars in a world forever mad and cruel.”
— Paula Bomer, author of The Stalker
“Trauma is the river that winds its way through Sara Lippmann’s haunting new novel. When a wedding invitation from an old friend arrives, Cassandra is forced to confront her past and the ways it has prevented her from truly moving on. Lippmann writes about the lingering effects of abuse with a light touch, expertly revealing the ways it pulses beneath the surface, threatening to drag us under.”
— Daisy Alpert Florin, author of My Last Innocent Year
“In a voice as sharp-edged as it is rueful, as slyly funny as it is wounding, Lippmann explores the confounding ambiguities and shattering transgressions at the heart of this beautifully provocative novel. Boundaries in friendship and family are irreversibly crossed and questions of the past haunt the book's present, refusing to be outrun. Hidden River, subtly and deeply, is a true page-turner, propelled by Lippmann’s fluid yet arresting prose and the way she captures the quiet suspense involved in re-making a life.”
— Deborah Shapiro, author of Consolation and The Sun in Your Eyes
“Unflinchingly unsentimental yet profoundly moving, Hidden River is a restrained and subtle novel about the cost of trauma, the cumulative power of minute, incremental change, and the infinite shades of gray in the lives of a victim, her abuser, and his enablers. I am a sucker for Sara Lippmann and her singularly inventive, sharp-edged prose.”
— Rachel Lyon, author of Fruit of the Dead and Self-Portrait with Boy
"Cass, the narrator of Sara Lippmann's absorbing new novel, tells her trying-to-come-of-age story in a series of deftly sketched scenes. Hers is a voice that doesn't let you go. Cass may be damaged by a long-kept secret, but she's a smart and knowing survivor--a tough-minded ideal guide to her own hidden river."
- David Gates, author of Jernigan
JERKS
ABOUT THE BOOK
With JERKS, Sara Lippmann rides the proverbial clutch between wanting and having. Ambivalent mothers, aging suburbanites, restless teens, survivalist parents, and disaffected wives—desire is a live wire, however frayed, a reminder that life, for all its sputtering stall outs, is still worth living. The messy characters in these eighteen stories may hack up their bed sheets with group sex, anonymous sex, sexual history, infidelity, and a literal handsaw, but there’s tenderness, too, among the lust and rage. Even when fantasy offers a shortcut to oneself, without connection, it’s a lonely escape. With crisp precision, ample honesty and desperate humor, Lippmann delivers an irresistibly fraught cast of characters at various stages of undress.
Praise for Jerks
"Sara Lippmann is a master of the absurd realities that comprise our American domestic lives. The stories in JERKS crackle with urgent, electric prose that sets fire to every sentence on every page. Funny, daring, brutal, honest, brilliant. Lippmann is dazzling."
— Robert Lopez, author of A Better Class of People
"The collection is a chorus of isolated but connected voices crying out for a way to be seen, to be recognized, to be desired."
— Gage Saylor, Gasher
"JERKS is quick, smooth, and easy reading that’ll leave you thinking about it long after you’ve finished."
— Lindsay Crandall, Independent Book Review
"There’s much to admire in these eighteen stories: the electric witty prose, the character depth achieved in mere pages, the way Lippmann tells expansive stories in such condensed form. In the heart and relatability of each story, we recognize our own fumbling desperations."
— Rachel León, Necessary Fiction
"You probably won’t love these characters, but you will see yourself in them."
"Sara Lippmann’s prose is impossible to mistake for that of any other writer. Her prose is like a pair of broken-in, well-loved leather boots—they take on the shape of the wearer’s feet, the shape of the miles they’ve traveled. The effect: I will follow wherever she leads me."
— Michelle Ross, Craft Literary
"I favor stories that speak to how we fall short of what we want, that we get in our own way in achieving whatever might be, or have been possible, but that at times, much of the time, we also don't clearly see the limits that have been placed in front of us."
— Ben Tanzer, The Lit Reactor
"The surprise of a Lippmann story—be it within the line, in a character's interiority, or in the story as a whole—means that every story feels as though it is thrumming with life. There is a lovely tension that is created between the vibrancy of the stories and the lives of the characters within the stories. Even though the characters in JERKS are often stuck in their lives, that sense of life, of possibility, of creation, runs throughout the collection, uniting the stories as one."
— Laura Spence-Ash, Ploughshares
"Visceral and rich with sensory detail, the stories swerve from humorous to cutting to irreverent."
"With lyricism and stinging humor, Lippmann brings us characters who are utterly lost and yet somehow hopeful, both compassionate and deeply cruel, and above all, painfully real."
— Karen Pittelman, poet/singer/songwriter of Karen & The Sorrows
"With her effortless dry humor and swift prose, Lippmann leads us to the field where our desires rage like wildfire, and keeps us there long enough to witness small kindling of hope in the fire's aftermath."
— Taylor Byas, author of Bloodwarm
"Reading JERKS is as satisfying as misbehaving yourself. Lippmann's collection is a fearless study of our most carnal desires. Taut and expansive, funny and merciless, this is an electric collection you won't soon forget."
— Danielle Lazarin, author of Back Talk: Stories
"Sara Lippmann is the shit. JERKS is all killer, no filler. Vividly funny, full of heart, devastating. They should carve this book onto the side of a mountain."
— Bud Smith, author of Teenager
“I loved it. Efficient, daring and fearless. Sara Lippmann aims right for the heart of our confused desire. She gets us inside the female experience, not just of lust but of the tedium and resentment, the long grind that lurks beneath the slow burn."
— Steve Almond, author of All the Secrets of the World
Smashing the Tablets: Radical Retellings of the Hebrew Bible
SMASHING THE TABLETS
ABOUT THE BOOK
Provocative new readings of biblical texts by major contemporary Jewish writers. Lot's daughters rebel against their predatory father, Jacob wrestles an angel in a queer underground nightclub, Job arrives in the form of an avaricious former sorority girl-Smashing the Tablets presents a collection of provocative new readings of biblical texts by major contemporary Jewish writers. Behind this groundbreaking collection is the idea that foundational texts must be read anew or they become tools of conservatism and reaction. To achieve fresh readings, it is often necessary to step outside traditional modes of analysis, whether academic or theological, and to violate the conventions of storytelling and interpretation. By challenging dominant readings and identifying underrepresented characters and moments that have been "written out" of the biblical conversation, the essays, stories, and poems in this collection rupture assumptions, unsettle the reader, and give voice to the voiceless. The Bible in this collection is bent, recontextualized, queered, inverted, and smashed to pieces. Smashing the Tablets is one of the most significant Jewish literary collections in decades, a groundbreaking must-read for Jews and others interested not only in the Bible but also in identity, faith, and power.
Praise for Smashing the Tablets
Smashing the Tablets unscrolls the ancient into a congregation of brilliant, strange, and necessary voices. A glorious reminder of how marvelously undead the bible is—after all." — Sabrina Orah Mark, author of Happily: A Personal History-with Fairy Tales
"…[a] stimulating collection of unorthodox takes on Torah stories … The mix of approaches and tones makes for a thought-provoking reevaluation of biblical themes, exploring with particular care how power dynamics are negotiated and which characters are glorified or sidelined. It's sure to spark conversation."
— Publishers Weekly
"The writing in this anthology is wonderfully inventive and indeed as radical as the title suggests, reclaiming ancient narratives for a modern audience."
-Sarah Groustra, JWA
“"This book is the kind of art we need in this moment: radical, imaginative, and most of all unafraid. Shattering a thing can be an act of faith: we make space for that thing to reform. Smashing the Tablets teaches us this lesson twenty-four times, in twenty-four ways."
— Shelly Oria, editor of I Know What's Best For You: Stories on Reproductive Freedom
“Smashing the Tablets is irreverent and rowdy, furious and funny, inventive and learned. It reminds us that the old texts don't have to be read in the old ways—and, indeed, that revisiting them can help us see the present through new eyes."
— Lily Meyer, author of Short War
"Filled with smart, funny, transgressive, thoughtful essays and stories by many of my very favorite Jewish writers, Smashing the Tablets is the best kind of anthology—the one you hold dear, pass around, and read again and again."
— Lauren Grodstein, author of We Must Not Think of Ourselves
“Smashing the Tablets unscrolls the ancient into a congregation of brilliant, strange, and necessary voices. A glorious reminder of how marvelously undead the bible is—after all."
— Sabrina Orah Mark, author of Happily: A Personal History-with Fairy Tales
Smashing the Tablets: Radical Retellings of the Hebrew Bible is arguably the most exciting creative volume devoted to biblical narrative in years and brims with stunning scriptural and psychological insights … [it] is a triumph of the moral as well as aesthetic imagination and deserves a place in every Jewish library."
— Jewish Book Council
Lech: a novel
LECH
ABOUT THE BOOK
A mother recovering from an abortion in a Borscht Belt rental. An eccentric aging landlord, the beleaguered farmer across the lake. A grief-stricken Hasid. A scheming real estate agent looking for her break, her dogged daughter looking for her way out, and her addict boyfriend mired in it. These lives—strangers, neighbors, family, friends—entwine and separate over the course of one fevered upstate summer, in a haunting and hilarious debut novel by acclaimed author Sara Lippmann that confronts the perennial question: how to loosen the ties that bind?
Praise for Lech
"What an extraordinary, razor-sharp, utterly original and gripping voice. Sara Lippman's LECH is at once a painstakingly drawn exploration of claustrophobia, exploitation, predation, and place, and a primal howl of rage let loose in the wind. Told in unflinching prose and with searing poetic intensity, LECH burns with all the fury and tenderness of an open wound."
— Catherine Chung, author of The Tenth Muse
"As the novel's characters excavate their lives and choices in search of logic and clarity, they're ultimately left with this truth: What we're told to believe about ourselves and the world is never all there is."
-Chanel Dubofsky, Jewish Women's Archive
"If Emile Zola had written about twenty-first century Sullivan County, New York, instead of nineteenth-century Paris, his exploration of character might have resembled Sara Lippmann’s in Lech."
- Emily Schneider, Jewish Book Council
"Smart and poignant, like the cool older sister of her short fiction. I absolutely loved it."
— Rachel León, Vol. 1 Brooklyn
"Lippmann's approach to the Jewish American story is refreshing — it is without agenda or sentimentality."
— Avner Landes, Paper Brigade Daily
"LECH is a bleak and brutal novel that sifts through the tragedy-stricken lives of Upstate New Yorkers."
— Foreword Reviews
"Sara Lippmann's novel is quilted together with loose stitching, holding the sensual with the grotesque, the intimate with the alienate, the paratactic with the full, and on and on. It is masterfully composed."
— Seth Rogoff, author of Thin Rising Vapors
“Sara Lippmann's LECH is a superb Jewish gothic, an expertly pitched polyvocal tale of family, loss, and redemption. By turns funny, beautiful, lewd and heartbreaking, Lippmann delivers a literary performance with all the timing and energy of a great Borscht Belt comic."
— Adam O'Fallon Price, author of The Hotel Neversink
“LECH takes place over a single summer in the Catskills, but it’s far bigger than that. Sara Lippmann is finely attuned to the cultural, political, and religious tensions that arise between the vacationers and the locals, between the haves and the have-nots. And, wow, those sentences! Lippmann writes like a dream.”
— Joshua Henkin, author of Morningside Heights
"A funny, brutal, symphonic novel from a writer with intensity and authority to spare. The world of LECH is as vivid, as wild, and as shockingly familiar as life itself, but way more interesting and way better told."
— Elisa Albert, author of Human Blues
Doll Palace: Stories
Doll Palace: Stories
DOLL PALACE
ABOUT THE BOOK
Published in 2014 from Dock Street Press, long-listed for the 2015 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and newly re-released by 713 Books!
In this stirring debut collection previously published by Dock Street Press, Sara Lippmann draws the reader into the intimate lives of characters seeking connection beyond their scripted worlds. She captures the beguiling transformation from child to adult with humor, heartache, and desperation. From grieving mothers to fathers adrift, old flames to restless teens, the isolated characters in Doll Palace are united by conflicting desires and the private struggles of the heart.
Praise for Doll Palace
"Sara Lippmann is the sort of writer who can drop you with a line. Of a guy wearing a baby in a harness, she writes, 'He yanks on the baby's stubby toes like he is milking it.' I'd read a hell of a lot of pages to find a sentence that practically nails an entire generation. Good news is this book has such lines on every page. Lippmann is a fearless writer, and these are concise and deadly stories." — Peter Orner, author of Maggie Brown & Others
"Lippmann’s ability to wring genuine surprise from the reader is her greatest gift."
"The accomplished prose, the haunting atmosphere and the emotional accuracy invite the reader to re-read this collection, and reflect on its stories."
"Every story in Sara Lippmann’s debut collection, Doll Palace, is a finely crafted, stark distillation of a different kind of loss, loneliness, or alienation."
— Jody Hobbs Hesler at PANK
"Lippmann’s prose is a stellar example of contemporary realism."
— Christopher Allen at Necessary Fiction
"Doll Palace is a widely varied collection whose variations do not fail to intrigue."
— Robert Long Foreman at Monkeybicycle
“[Lippmann’s] stories lead us to perfect endings, often ominous and not quite clear endings that made me re-read the last page. Even the re-read was a pleasure.”
—Christy Crutchfield at Small Press Book Review
“Lippmann is one of those authors who can get away with both seriousness and hilarity in the same sentence.”
— Leesa Cross-Smith at Sun Dog Lit
"[Lippmann] is both unpredictable and exciting, and succeeds in building believable characters through a perspective that feels unique. "
"Lippmann is a rare phenomenon... Doll Palace is woven so skillfully that the movements from one room to the next, one character’s inner dialogue to the next is fluid and non-linear like memory."
- Meg Tuite at Entropy
“The stories found in Sara Lippmann‘s collection Doll Palace are concise and dizzying, showcasing memorably wrenching scenes from numerous lives in the span of a few pages."
- Tobias Carroll, Vol. 1 Brooklyn
"The narratives here are vividly framed and spiked with surprising moments of wisdom."
"Lippmann’s stories are well-crafted and tight, some so short they might qualify as micro-fiction. Lippmann’s voice is distinctive for her sparse and straightforward style, which ties together a collection with a roving cast of characters...All of the stories are propelled by a forward momentum, and the stories are more likely to end on an action, rather than a image, or a moment of contemplation."
"Smart and technically accomplished fiction."
― Kirkus Reviews
"Lippmann's debut is a terrific collection of short stories that mostly take place in or around New York....These stories clearly reveal Lippmann's talent, and indicate a bright future ahead."
― Publishers Weekly
“Sara Lippmann’s prose is unflinching. Her female characters see motherhood, womanhood and self-hood through a raw and funny lens: I am about to cry, when I laugh. Terribly wonderful and exciting work!"
— Rachel Sherman, author of Living Room and The First Hurt
"Sara Lippmann’s Doll Palace is a sexy, sad and fearless collection full of humor, pathos and compassion. Her scalpel-sharp stories are raw emotional gems, blinding in their precision. She understands the pumping highways and byways of the human heart like a seasoned traveler."
— Jonathan Papernick, author of The Ascent of Eli Israel, There is No Other and The Book of Stone
"Sara Lippmann’s stories are visceral and gripping, venturing into dark places with sharp wit and a gimlet eye. A lot of them gave me bad dreams, and I mean that in a good way. This is a memorable debut collection."
— Alix Ohlin, author of Dual Citizens