Twice-Born World: Stories of Lithuania

A New Collection from Wendell Mayo, author of 'In Lithuanian Wood', and 'The Cucumber King of Kédainia?. Wendell Mayo captures the fractured, mournful soul of modern Lithuania like no other writer. In his new book, Twice-Born World: Stories of Lithuania, he resurrects themes from In Lithuanian Wood and The Cucumber King of Kédainia: grief, loneliness, the impossibility of communication, the inexplicability of desire. In this volume, the themes are even more sharply delineated, with desire playing a more prominent role. Mayo's characters, like Lithuania herself, long to connect to a more youthful, hopeful version of the past. As always, Mayo masterfully combines elements of the absurd with deeply poetic language. Every story in Twice-Born World is a gem. I couldn't put this book down.-- Daiva Markelis, author of White Field, Black Sheep: A Lithuanian-American LifeIn Twice-Born World, Wendell Mayo manages the seemingly impossible--to make his stories both steeped in post-Soviet Lithuanian sensibilities while also making them feel universal. These are characters in the midst of transition, characters who frequently tell stories that mesmerize, as if stories might make sense of this beguiling new world. The effect is startling as Mayo seamlessly slides through space and time and perspective, offering subtle commentary on the geopolitics of the 1980s, all of which feels particularly acute in 2018. A necessary companion to Mayo's In Lithuanian Wood, and a stunning collection by a master of the short story.--Brad Felver, author of The Dogs of DetroitTwice-Born World transports readers to a Baltic sphere of post-Soviet nostalgia and struggle, of boozy, clumsy, and erotic East-West encounters, of overheard park-bench conversations, and of knee-capped Lenin statues. In this clear-eyed yet hope-filled collection, Wendell Mayo welcomes us to his Lithuania: a topsy-turvy place of rainfall, blue skies, everyday poetry, sinking despair, and limitless possibility.--Julija äukys, author of Siberian Exile: Blood, War, and a Granddaughter's ReckoningWendell Mayo's heart-wrenching new collection about contemporary Lithuania proves yet again that he is one of the living masters of the short story form. Mayo employs a dazzling array of voices, creates a host of unforgettable characters, both Lithuanian and American, and keeps at his ready a sympathetic and encyclopedic knowledge of Lithuanian history; in the process, he weaves tenacious tales about men and women snared by political circumstances, but even more so by the unruly instincts of their own hearts. Yet finally, miraculously, in the end, every story in the book manages to be about the act of storytelling itself: its magic, its elusiveness, and its biological power. Mayo has never written so convincingly and so well.--John Vanderslice, author of Island FogFiction.