Atavists
Stories
Published on 24. April 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-324-12355-2 (ISBN)
Description
From Lydia Millet-"the American writer with the funniest, wisest grasp on how we fool ourselves" (Chicago Tribune)-comes an inventive collection of short fiction. Atavists follows a group of families, couples and loners in their collisions, confessions and conflicts in a post-pandemic America of artificially lush lawns, beauty salons, tech-bro mansions, assisted-living facilities, big-box stores, gastropubs, college campuses and medieval role-playing festivals.
Reviews / Votes
"Millet playfully skewers Los Angeles liberals while leaving their social concerns quietly intact on the page..." -- Maria Crawford - Financial Times, 'Best summer books of 2025: Fiction' "Although optimism is understandably in short supply, Millet delivers her doom with a generous dose of subversive humour... Millet has an excellent ear for dialogue, and her characters are endearing." -- Mia Levitin - Financial Times "Very few writers can make the apocalypse hilarious and sentimental." -- Stuart Kelly - Scotland on Sunday "[Millet] knows how to put a story together. How to pace drama and consummate tension, when to turn up the volume and when to leave us alone with what she's put in motion." -- The New York Times "All this tension, which Millet renders keenly and readably, is built and released in the face of immense and existential forces of undoing..." -- The Los Angeles Review of BooksMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Dimensions
Height: 207 mm
Width: 143 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
224 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-324-12355-2 (9781324123552)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Person
Lydia Millet is the author of A Children's Bible, a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times Top Ten book of the Year. Her first work of short fiction, Love in Infant Monkeys, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She lives outside Tucson, Arizona.