The Geography of First Kisses
Winner of the Acacia Fiction Prize
In The Geography of First Kisses, one finds portrayals of quiet elegance reminiscent of early-20th-century art films. The fourteen ethereal stories are tethered to the bays and backwaters of southern Louisiana, the fields of Iowa and Oklahoma, the pine woods of Florida, places where girls and women seek love and belonging, and instead discover relationships as complicated, bewildering, even sorrowful. A New Orleans girl spends a year collecting boyfriends and all the while considers the reach of her misadventures; a newlywed couple travels to Tulsa in search of a horse gone missing, perhaps more in search of themselves; a new mother is faced with understanding the miracles and mysteries of faith when her baby disappears; a young daughter travels to Tallahassee with her mother, trying to unravel the meaning of love crossed with abandonment. Saturated with poetic illusion and powered with prose of a dark, pulsating circuitry, the collection combines joy, heartache, and tenacity in a manner sorely missed in today’s super-structured literature.
PRAISE FOR THE GEOGRAPHY OF FIRST KISSES
“The Geography of First Kisses maps a lush world of love, loss, and memory. Prismatic and crystalline, Davidson’s prose dazzles.” —C. Morgan Babst, author of The Floating World
“Karin Cecile Davidson’s debut story collection, The Geography of First Kisses, lives up to the promise of its title, as it transports readers into the lushness of landscapes which range from the Louisiana bayous to the Iowa plains, as each story immerses us in place and is steeped in the longings and yearnings of the human heart. Like the desire of the characters themselves, Davidson’s prose crackles on the page, with lyricism that feels effortless. These are stories that linger, and Davidson’s stylistic skills, like the characters she so beautifully renders, will leave readers breathless, eager for more.” —Laurie Foos, author of Ex Utero and The Blue Girl
“Reading The Geography of First Kisses is a heady, gloriously excessive experience. Davidson’s image-rich prose is succulent, her sensibility generous, and though these stories roam between the South and the Midwest, they’re imbued with the deceptively languorous spirit of a Louisiana afternoon in the height of summer.” —Holly Goddard Jones, author of Antipodes: Stories and The Salt Line
“The Geography of First Kisses is a dreamy map of love, longing, and lust. It hums and spins in the fever of the bayous, the flight paths of Ohio, unkempt hotel rooms, flickering drive-ins. Karin Cecile Davidson is a wizard at conjuring bodies let loose on this earth. Reading this book is like discovering a long-lost photo album of old loves.” —Reif Larsen, author of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet and I Am Radar
“If you follow the Street of Longing to where it dead-ends, inevitably, at the Avenue of Loneliness, there you will find Karin Cecile Davidson’s story collection The Geography of First Kisses. These characters long for everything: to be seen fully and to disappear; for this kiss to be the first, for this kiss to be the last; to go far away from this place and moment, to stay right here forever. And so it is for the reader also: I wished these stories never to end.” —Lori Ostlund, author of After the Paradeand The Bigness of the World
“Whether they're catching minnows by hand or releasing birds back into the wild, the unforgettable characters of The Geography of First Kisses navigate landscapes we know and love and fear. Here are stories that astonish, at once fantastic and familiar, told in voices both intimate and enchanting. A resonant collection of vibrant gems!” —David James Poissant, author of Lake Life and The Heaven of Animals
“Each of the stories of The Geography of First Kisses pulls the reader into a convincing, nuanced world. And Davidson then manages to exit each story with a particular image in which the emotion—be it glad, resolute, or sad—fits that story’s particular protagonist. Kudos!” —Joe Taylor, author of The Theoretics of Love and Bad Form
PURCHASE THE GEOGRAPHY OF FIRST KISSES
Sybelia Drive
A Novel
Braddock Avenue Books, October 2020
In the small lake town where LuLu, Rainey, and Saul are growing up, day-to-day life is anything but easy. Navigating the usual obstacles of youth would be enough for anyone, but for this trio a world marred by the Vietnam War, detached parents, and untimely death create circumstances overloaded with trouble. Yet through their unyielding resourcefulness and the willingness to expose their vulnerabilities, these three friends discover deeper bonds than even they could ever imagine.
Told through kaleidoscopic images and in prose that will keep you on the edge of your seat, Sybelia Drive is a story of three friends who push beyond the typical woes of childhood into teenage years transformed by the shared baggage of a generation, years when men walk on the moon; students are killed during a peace demonstration at Kent State; and the obligations of military service claim the lives of fathers, husbands, and children.
Investigating the personal impact of social upheaval with unparalleled sensitivity and depth, Sybelia Drive is a novel that will stay with you for a long, long time. It is an extraordinary debut.
PRAISE FOR SYBELIA DRIVE
“Both sensual and precise, Sybelia Drive tours a reader through a range of times, countries, and points of view to create a lush portrait of friendship and family, loss and fullness.” —Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade
“Karin Cecile Davidson has written a keenly-observed novel about the persistence of family ties and friendships, the press of history on private lives, and the tug of both home and away. At once delicate in its prose and bold in its vision, Sybelia Drive is a luminous debut.” —Elizabeth Graver, author of The End of the Point
“In this brilliantly structured, morally complex novel, Karin Cecile Davidson explores the lives of two girls who have lost their fathers to Vietnam, and of the people around them. I love how well Davidson knows her fierce characters, and how close to the edge she writes. Sybelia Drive is a stunning debut.” —Margot Livesey, author of The Boy in the Field and The Hidden Machinery
“Karin Cecile Davidson’s first novel, Sybelia Drive, is one of the most intricately and inventively constructed works of fiction to come my way in a good while. Davidson knows how to make you turn the pages, and she also knows how to take you inside the lives of her very memorable characters and make you care about their fates. This is a wonderful debut.” —Steve Yarbrough, author of The Unmade World