Books Ref

“Bender’s is a unique and compassionate voice, and her debut is a string of jewels.”
— Publisher’s Weekly

“Thank God for Aimee Bender and her short story collection…She has screamed more life into the short story than anyone since Flannery O’Connor. Bender’s stories introduce the world to honest, inspiring, brutal and beautiful people.”
— MSNBC

“Prose so animated it seems almost capable of writing itself.”
— The Atlantic Monthly

Willful Creatures is an essential work that should be required reading for any who delight in deft prose and truly empathetic portraits of the human condition.”
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Willful Creatures achieves what many story collections do not: it leaves an emotional impression that transcends the individual stories, but does not erase them. This may explain why her readers are so devoted: we feel as though we’ve witnessed the miraculous rebirth of the short story.”
— Alexis M. Smith for tarpaulinsky.com

“Line by line, the reader is rewarded with a masterful prose style and an artistic vision that ruthlessly breaks down and dramatizes the arbitrary but necessary strategies people employ to keep themselves from never leaving their houses.”
— Village Voice

“Aimee Bender is one writer who is shouting clearly and beautifully from the hilltops that our lives are most definitely not ordinary and typical.”
— The Denver Post

“Oddly beautiful.”
—The Washington Post

“The fabulist elements of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake are stunning, but what makes this novel a keeper is the sheer beauty of the language Bender uses to describe love.”
—NPR, “Books We Like”

“Bender gives you the three dimensions plus the two we hide behind. You love the cartoon family. You love the fairy tale. But when Bender pulls aside the curtain and shows you the dark swirling truth, you cannot look away. You feel – that rare and beautiful gift from a truly great book – woken up and unalone.”
— The Globe and Mail

The Third Elevator is the story of a swan, a bluebird, the curious family they form together, and the mysterious elevators in the center of their village.