Monstress is an exhilarating rollercoaster of a book. Deeply funny, heartbreaking, hopeful, philosophical, bawdy, and wise, Lysley Tenorioโs stories, written from the underbelly of the American Dream, present one brilliant portrait after another.
Sabina MurrayWhat does literature do for me? I think I solve problems in my writing. They may be my problems, but perhaps others share them, and in the process of working these through, I hope to entertain.
Sabina MurrayIn some ways, Valiant Gentlemen grows out of Tales of the New World, my collection of short stories about explorers who lived "great" lives, but whose experience of it was in the same register as all our lives are - we feel the same extent of human emotion regardless of how exceptional our actions are: nothing is more exceptional than one's own life.
Sabina MurrayEvery book presents its own specific challenges, or should, and you're right that this one has a preoccupation with uncertainty. In this, Valiant Gentlemen is a rupture from previous work as its obsession is with the psychology of characters who are in states of unknowing living in unpredictable times where the stakes are unusually high.
Sabina MurrayIn this cultural moment, many of us are feeling inadequate to solve societal problems - fascism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, anti-Semitism, the list goes on - and are unsure of how individuals can affect real change. We don't know what effect we will have on the current political climate as we strive to effect change. All large historical decision draw from a sea of smaller decisions. One never knows what will make the difference in the long run.
Sabina Murray