The Lobster Kings
“Confirms what Touch already prophesied: Alexi Zentner is one of the greatest literary architects and mythmakers working today.” — Téa Obreht
From the internationally acclaimed author of Touch, praised as "breathtaking" (People) and "lovely... at once dreamy and riveting" (Washington Post), comes a powerful family saga steeped in the legends of the sea. Set in a lobster fishing village, The Lobster Kings introduces a fiery and unforgettable heroine, Cordelia Kings.
The Kings family has lived on Loosewood Island for three hundred years, blessed with the bounty of the sea. But for the Kings, this blessing comes with a curse: the loss of every firstborn son. Now, Woody Kings, the leader of the island’s lobster fishing community and the family patriarch, teeters on the throne, and Cordelia, the oldest of Woody’s three daughters, stands to inherit the crown. To do so, however, she must defend her island from meth dealers from the mainland while navigating sibling rivalry and the vulnerable nature of her own heart when she falls in love with her sternman.
Inspired by King Lear, The Lobster Kings is the story of Cordelia’s struggle to maintain her island’s way of life in the face of danger from offshore and the rich, looming, mythical legacy of her family’s namesake.
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Alexi Zentner
Alexi Zentner is the author of the novels The Lobster Kings (May 2014) and Touch (2011). He is published in the United States by W. W. Norton & Company, and in Canada by Knopf Canada. Touch has been published or is forthcoming in a dozen countries and ten languages, and The Lobster Kings will be published in at least six counties and five languages. The CBC has named Alexi as one of 12 Writers to Watch - "the future of this country's literature" - and one of six "fresh voices" for 2011. Touch was named one of the "best books" of 2011 from The National Post, Kobo, and Amazon.ca, and singled out for year-end praise by The Globe & Mail. Touch was shortlisted for The 2011 Governor General’s Literary Award, The Center for Fiction’s 2011 Flahery-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the 2012 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and the 2011 Amazon.ca First Novel Award, and longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the 2013 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
