Lydia Millet | |
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 Millet at the 2016 Texas Book Festival | |
| Born | (1968-12-05)December 5, 1968 (age 56) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Education | |
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| Notable works |
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| Notable awards | |
| Website | |
| lydiamillet | |
Lydia Millet (born December 5, 1968) is an American novelist. Her 2020 novelA Children's Bible was a finalist for theNational Book Award for Fiction and named one of the ten best books of the year by theNew York Times Book Review.[1] She has been a finalist for thePulitzer Prize and theLos Angeles Times Book Prize.Salon wrote of Millet's work, "The writing is always flawlessly beautiful, reaching for an experience that precedes language itself."[2]
Millet was born inBoston, Massachusetts and raised inToronto, Ontario, Canada, where she attended theUniversity of Toronto Schools. She holds a Bachelor of Arts ininterdisciplinary studies, with highest honors in creative writing, from theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master's degree fromDuke University. Formerly married toKieran Suckling, Millet lives inTucson, Arizona with her two children. She holds a master's in environmental policy from Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and worked forNatural Resources Defense Council for two years before joining theCenter for Biological Diversity in 1999 as a staff writer.[3]
Millet is best known for her dark sense of humor, stylistic versatility, and political bent. Her first book,Omnivores (1996), is a subversion of thecoming-of-age novel, in which a young girl inSouthern California is tormented by her megalomaniac father and invalid mother and finally sold in marriage to a real estate agent. Her second,George Bush, Dark Prince of Love (2000), is a political comedy about atrailer-park woman obsessed with the41st American president.
Brief but weighty, her third book,My Happy Life (2002), is a poetic, language-oriented work about a lonely misfit trapped in an abandoned hospital, who writes the poignant story of her life on the walls. It is narrated by, asThe Village Voice glowing deems her, "an orphan cruelly mistreated by life who nevertheless regards her meager subsistence as a radiant gift." Despite the horrors that amount to her life, she still calls herself happy. Jennifer Reese ofThe New York Times Book Review commented on Millet's new approach to the treatment of the literary victim, saying "Millet has created a truly wretched victim, but where is the outrage? She has coolly avoided injecting so much as a hint of it into this thin, sharp and frequently funny novel; one of the narrator's salient characteristics is an inability to feel even the mildest indignation. The world she inhabits is a savage place, but everything about it interests her, and paying no attention to herself, she is able to see beauty and wonder everywhere."
Millet's fourth novel,Everyone's Pretty (2005), is apicaresque tragicomedy about an alcoholicpornographer withmessianic delusions, based partly on Millet's stint as a copy editor atLarry Flynt Publications. Sarah Weinman of theWashington Post Book World called it "both prism and truth" "With a sharp eye for small details, a keen sense of the absurd and strong empathy for its creations," Millet creates akaleidoscope of quirky characters.The New York Times Book Review called her fifth novel,Oh Pure and Radiant Heart (2005), an "extremely smart…resonant fantasy." It brings three of thephysicists responsible for creating theatomic bomb to life in modern-dayNew Mexico, where they acquire a cult following and embark on a crusade for redemption.
How the Dead Dream is "a frightening and gorgeous view of human decline," according to Utne Reader. It features a youngLos Angeles real estate developer consumed by power and political ambitions who, after his mother's suicide attempt and two other deaths, begins to nurture a curious obsession with vanishing species. Then a series of calamities forces him from a tropical island, the site onone of his developments, onto the mainland where he takes aConrad-esque journey up a river into the remote jungle.Eye Weekly summarized thisblack comedy, noting "American culture loves its stories of hubris, downfall and ruin as of late, but it takes a writer of Millet's sensitivity to enjoy the way down this much."
Love in Infant Monkeys is a short story collection featuringvignettes about famous historical andpop culture icons and their encounters with other species.
Her 2011 novel,Ghost Lights, made best-of-the-year lists inThe New York Times andSan Francisco Chronicle and received strong critical attention. The novel stars anInternal Revenue Service bureaucrat named Hal — a man baffled by his wife's obsession with her missing employer. In a moment of drunken heroism, Hal embarks on a quest to find the man, embroiling himself in a surreal tropical adventure (and an unexpected affair with a beguiling German woman).Ghost Lights is beautifully written, engaging, and full of insight into the heartbreaking devotion of parenthood and the charismatic oddity of human behavior. TheBoston Globe called it "[An] odd and wonderful novel", while theCleveland Plain Dealer wrote, "Millet is that rare writer of ideas who can turn aruminative passage into something deeply personal. She can also be wickedly funny, most often at the expense of the unexamined life."
Ghost Lights was the second in an acclaimed cycle of novels that began withHow the Dead Dream in 2008. The third,Magnificence (2012) completes the cycle.
Magnificence introduced Susan Lindley, a woman adrift after her husband's death and the dissolution of her family. Embarking on a new phase in her life after inheriting her uncle's sprawling mansion and its vast collection oftaxidermy, Susan decides to restore the extensive collection of moth-eaten animal mounts, tending to "the fur and feathers, the beaks, the bones and shimmering tails." Meanwhile, an equally derelict humanmenagerie – including an unfaithful husband and a chorus of eccentric old women – joins her in residence. In a setting both wondrous and absurd, Susan defends her legacy from freeloading relatives and explores the mansion's unknown spaces.Jonathan Lethem, writing forThe Guardian, called it "elegant, darkly comic…with overtones variously ofMuriel Spark,Edward Gorey andJ. G. Ballard, full of contemporary wit and devilish fateful turns for her characters, and then also to knit together into a tapestry of vast implication and ethical urgency, something as large as any writer could attempt: a kind of allegoricalelegy for life on a dying planet. Ours, that is." The book was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
The September 2012 release ofShimmers in the Night was the second inThe Dissenters, an eco-fantasy series for young adults. Beginning withThe Fires Beneath the Sea, the plot follows two young siblings as they search for their mother, ashapeshifting character who is fighting against forces who wants to make the planet over in their own image.
Pills and Starships is a young adult novel set in "a dystopic future brought byglobal warming."
Mermaids in Paradise tempers the sharp satire of Millet's early career with the empathy and subtlety of her more recent novels and short stories. In a send-up of the Americanhoneymoon, "Mermaids in Paradise" takes readers to the grounds of aCaribbean island resort, where newlyweds Deb and Chip — the opinionated, skeptical narrator and her cheerful jock husband — meet amarine biologist who says she's sightedmermaids in acoral reef.Karen Russell wrote "leave it to Lydia Millet to capsize her human characters in aquamarine waters and upstage their honeymoon with mermaids. I am awed to know there's a mind like Millet's out there – she's a writer without limits, always surprising, always hilarious."
Sweet Lamb of Heaven, published byW. W. Norton & Company in May 2016, blends domestic thriller with psychological horror, following a young mother's flight from her cold and unfaithful husband. As her husband's pursuit escalates to criminal levels, she and her six-year-old daughter go into hiding in a run-down coastal motel where the other guests may have unimaginable secrets of their own.[4] TheLos Angeles Times has praised the novel as "a real thriller...part of a higher stakes game being played by Millet, one that will ultimately, unabashedly touch on time, beauty, horror, God, demons and the very nature of being,"[5] whileThe Washington Post called the book "exuberant and playful...featuring a rollicking kidnapping plot and deliciously well-drawn characters."[6]
Fight No More: Stories, published in June 2018, was named a best book of the year byLibrary Journal.[7]
A Children's Bible, published in May 2020, follows a group of twelve children on a forced vacation with their families at a sprawling lakeside mansion. When a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, the group's ringleaders decide to run away, leading the younger ones on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside. InThe Washington Post, critic Ron Charles called the novel, "a blistering little classic."[8]
Dinosaurs: A Novel, published October 2022, follows a lonely, wealthy heir as he moves from New York City toPhoenix, Arizona after a badbreakup. There, he befriends his next-door neighbors, becoming a confidante to the parents and a friend and trustedbabysitter for the two children. He spends his time volunteering at a localwomen's shelter and wrestling with his breakup and the possibility of future romance inmiddle age, while also learning about birds that populate the area – which are the descendants of "dinosaurs" referenced by the title.[9]
Publishers Weekly named it one of the top ten books of fiction published in 2022.[10]
In 2012, Millet received a fellowship from theJohn Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.[11]
In 2020,The New York Times namedA Children's Bible one of the top ten best books of 2020.[12]
In 2022,Publishers Weekly namedDinosaurs one of the top ten books of fiction published in 2022.[13]
| Year | Title | Award | Category | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | My Happy Life | PEN Center USA Literary Award | Fiction | Won | |
| 2005 | Oh Pure and Radiant Heart | Arthur C. Clarke Award | — | Shortlisted | |
| 2009 | Love in Infant Monkeys | Salon Book Award | Fiction | Won | |
| 2010 | Pulitzer Prize | Fiction | Finalist | ||
| 2012 | Magnificence | Los Angeles Times Book Prize | Fiction | Finalist | [14] |
| National Book Critics Circle Award | Fiction | Finalist | [15] | ||
| 2019 | Fight No More | American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award | ? | Won | [16] |
| 2020 | A Children's Bible | National Book Award | Fiction | Shortlisted | [17] |
| 2021 | Aspen Words Literary Prize | — | Longlisted | [18] | |
| James Tait Black Memorial Prize | Fiction | Shortlisted | [19] |
