Description
Fiction. California Interest. Down-and-out Tamil American trial lawyer Maya Ramesh fights to save a painted lemur come to life, and in settings that range from Oakland, California, to a Malagasy rain forest, becomes a champion for them both. In magical realist tradition Anita Felicelli's satiric novel, CHIMERICA, looks at the inherent absurdities that drive systems of culture, power, and law. Fans of Marquez, Kelly Link, and Helen Oyeyemi will find CHIMERICA a spirited investigation of the ways in which art is codified and commodified—a contemporary philosophical, non-ideological, novel about art, originality, and American culture.
"Felicelli's remarkable CHIMERICA is a coolly surrealist legal thriller—in turns sly, absurd, emotionally vivid, and satirically incisive—that shifts the reader into a world just adjacent to our own."—Jonathan Lethem
"Felicelli blends the matter-of-fact with the mysterious in this utterly unique and compellingly readable debut. CHIMERICA is more than the story of a woman coming into her own power; it's a keen dive into the worlds of law, visual art, and marriage. You really couldn't ask for a novel with better ingredients. Did I mention there's a talking lemur? THERE'S A TALKING LEMUR."—Kelly Luce
Author Bio
Anita Felicelli is the author of the short story collection Love Songs for a Lost Continent (Stillhouse Press), which won the 2016 Mary Roberts Rinehart Award, praised by Porochista Khakpour as a "book we needed to read yesterday...a book we will still be reading tomorrow." Anita's fiction has appeared in The Normal School, Joyland, The Rumpus, and her essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, SF Chronicle, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Electric Literature, and others. She graduated from UC Berkeley and attended UC Berkeley School of Law, and has worked as a litigator in diverse fields, including arts, criminal defense, civil rights, clergy abuse, and construction litigation. A member of the National Book Critics Circle and an alum of Voices of Our Nations, she is a two-time recipient of the Greater Bay Area Journalism award, as well as multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Anita Felicelli was born in South India and grew up in the Bay Area, where she currently lives with her spouse and three children.
Author City: MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA USA