Memoir
Fiction

“A one-of-a-kind book, fascinating and honest.”
--Joan Silber 2004 National Book Award nominee, Ideas of Heaven
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"Wonderful and incisive, A Thousand and One Nights tells us in a new way what it means to be young and American. Tupper casts a keen, intelligent eye on the contemporary world, its multitude of fakeries and deceits, providing us with a witty, poignant, wholly worthwhile read."— Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout

"This is a moving and accomplished first novel.”
--Jim Shepard, 2007 National Book Award nominee, Like You'd Understand, Anyway

"Both an off-kilter take on the conventional coming-of-age tale and a sly commentary on the underbelly of celebrity culture, this truly original book is basically uncategorizable—blissfully so."--Elle.com

"Funny and insightful and told in prose as resilient as Karla's spirit. Keep an eye on Lara Tupper; she is sure to go far." --Rebecca Oppenheimer, National Book Critics' Circle member

"...shrewdly observed..."--The Boston Globe

"Add [this] title to your must-read list."--The Sacramento Bee

...on Love and Heartbreak (2009)

photo by Robert Mitchell

BIO: Lara Tupper is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. A former lounge singer, she has performed at sea in the Mediterranean and Caribbean, and on land in Thailand, Japan, China and the United Arab Emirates. She now teaches fiction writing at Rutgers University and lives in New York City, where she writes book reviews for the Believer and works very hard on book #2. Harcourt published her debut novel, A Thousand and One Nights, in 2007. She is a proud member of the Authors Guild, the Writers Room (NYC), the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance and the BMIFC (Barry Manilow International Fan Club).

Contributor, Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak


SYNOPSIS from HARCOURT:

"Twenty-two-year-old Karla is thrilled to be hired as an entertainer on the Sound of Music cruise ship—where the rum punch is 80 percent Kool-Aid, the ice sculp- tures are plastic, and her "fake it till you make it" M.O. seems adventuresome. Karla is less thrilled when her new boyfriend, Jack, suggests that they form a singing duo on land, but by now faking enthusiasm has become a way of life. She and Jack buy backing tracks, crib lyrics from the radio, and embark on a not-as-glamorous-as-it-should-be career performing in the luxury hotel bars of the Middle East and China. But after a thousand and one nights on the road, Karla and Jack find themselves struggling to keep their act—both personal and professional—together.

Funny, fast-paced, and incisive, A Thousand and One Nights captures the performances, large and small, we use to make it through life."


photo by Robert Mitchell

Links to nonfiction, short stories, press and Believer reviews: