Sometimes when we write The Story behind the Pick for our First Editions Club, few readers have ever heard of the book, but that is not the case with Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife. Since its March 8th release, it seems The Tiger’s Wife and Téa Obreht have been front and center in every major newspaper. Some of the obvious points we’ve heard about her include her young age of 25 and being selected for 20 under 40: Stories from The New Yorker and as well as the National Book Foundation’s list of 5 under 35.

The last time The New Yorker had put together such a collection was in 1999 and included excerpts from Michael Chabon’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest,” as well as the work of Junot Diaz, Jonathan Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri and Edwidge Dandicat. Téa has this to say about the honor:

[It’s] really humbling, in the most positive way. It’s surreal to be attached to this list of writers I admire. But I’m not going to let it go to my head.” (Publisher’s Weekly Interview)

The Tiger’s Wife is a complex, ambitious and beautiful novel. Natalia, a practicing doctor, must come to terms with the life around her which none of her medical training can answer. Her grandfather, a great storyteller and physician, mysteriously passes away in a village far from home.

With his belongings are still in the village, Natalia’s grandmother is nervous about getting them home before the family’s Eastern Orthodox mourning ritual is passed. Meanwhile, at the orphanage where Natalia is helping sick children, a family is digging night and day to unearth a body they believe to be causing the sickness.

Throughout this time period, Natalia begins to understand that the myth of the tiger’s wife actually surrounds real people from her grandfather’s hometown. Weaving myth and allegory from traditional Serbian and Croatian literature into the plot of the narrative, the reader begins to see life reflected in these long-told stories. Michiko Kakutani, writing for the New York Times, expounds on the strong presence of myth in The Tiger’s Wife:

“Ms. Obreht, who was born in the former Yugoslavia . . . writes with remarkable authority and eloquence, and she demonstrates an uncommon ability to move seamlessly between the gritty realm of the real and the more primary-colored world of the fable. It’s not so much magical realism in the tradition of Gabriel García Márquez or Günter Grass as it is an extraordinarily limber exploration of allegory and myth making and the ways in which narratives (be they superstition, cultural beliefs or supernatural legends) reveal–and reflect back–the identities of individuals and communities: their dreams, fears, sympathies and hatreds.” (March 11, 2011)

While there is much to discuss regarding the novel and its author, it would be a great oversight not to mention the story of how it came to be published. It is another story of precociousness.

Téa Obreht’s 30-year-old agent, Seth Fishman, got about half-way through the sixty-page manuscript before he had to stop and pace to contain his elation. Tiger’s Wife became his first book to ever sell as an agent. While on jury duty, editor Noah Eaker read the book-length version and excitedly e-mailed his colleague at Random House and pleaded with her to read it over the weekend. At that time, Eaker was still an editorial assistant and a mere 26-years-old.

In an age when anti-intellectualism sometimes feels rampant, you have teams such as this group of young people producing great literature that will be long remembered.

The Tiger’s Wife is published by Random House with a first printing of 25,000.

While Tiger’s Wife is the kind of novel you just want to get lost in, here is list of commentary that Lemurians have been reading over the past several weeks:

Death and Tigers: PW Talks with Téa Obreht, Publisher’s Weekly, 1/17

The Practical and Fantastical, The Wall Street Journal, 3/5

Magical Realism Meets Big Cats In The Tiger’s Wife, NPR, 3/8

Luminous Fables in a Land of Loss, The New York Times, 3/11

A Mythic Novel of the Balkan Wars, The New York Times Book Review, 3/13

Author Earns Her Stripes on First Try, The New York Times, 3/14

Téa Obreht will be at Lemuria signing and reading The Tiger’s Wife at 5pm on Wednesday, March 23rd. The Tiger’s Wife is Lemuria’s March First Edition Club Pick.

Téa Obreht was born in 1985 in the former Yugoslavia, and spent her childhood in Cyprus and Egypt before eventually immigrating to the United States in 1997. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Zoetrope: All-Story, The New York Times, and The Guardian, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Non-Required Reading. As mentioned before, she has been named by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best American fiction writers under forty and included in the National Book Foundation’s list of 5 Under 35. Téa Obreht lives in Ithaca, New York. (www.teaobreht.com)

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