Praise for Eden

“Daring [and] explosively supernatural...[Eden is] a startling reminder of how forceful Southern magic can be...The message is simple, though profound: love and death destroy difference, devouring us al...Vernon’s talent...is as green and growing as those country fields where her ghosts lurk.” —Ann Powers, The New York Times Book Review

“Astonishing....These are the primal scenes, the bare elements of melodrama, the Morrisonian, Faulknerian, Southern Gothic family secrets, familiar in their very atrocity....Vernon’s voice sometimes takes on an Orphic authority, rising from vigilant observation and the magical force of language to make the ordinary new...With wild specificity, Vernon re-creates a universal existential moment: the quailing of the spirit in confrontation with ‘death, my death.” —Anya Kamentz, Village Voice

“A profoundly raw and gripping read: Vernon’s is a new African-American and Southern voice with sustaining dramatic power that magnifies the human condition.” —Jean Thompson, The Baltimore Sun

“The rural black Southern culture comes alive through language that is direct, sometimes raw, and frequently sensual and sexually explicit; characters limited by their lack of education, the poverty, and ongoing racial prejudice; and plot details that are both shocking and pathetic....Eden is a powerful novel in the tradition of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Toni Morrison’s work.” —Susan Allison, Kliatt

“Sensual and disturbing, Vernon’s debut novel has an intensity and lyricism...Vernon writes with a scary, deep knowledge of a very primitive place...The rural countryside of Pyke County, Miss., resembles a scorched paradise–an Eden after the fall, after the snake has brought darkness, disease and decay into the world.” —Hal Jacobs, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“An important story, not to be categorized by race or gender or region. Its truths are universal...Vernon relies on the highest philosophies of spirit to tell this story of the body, and she does so in a way that does not take it from the hands of the people of Pyke County, but shares it graciously with the hands of all...Vernon’s prose is unapologetic; it rushes forward, soaring at times, grounded at others, unfettered by a strict genre of reality.” —Kate Cantrill, The Austin Chronicle

“[Vernon is] a remarkable new voice...Eden offers symbolism galore: a lizard-like scar from breast cancer, the fattening hog oblivious to its own fate, Chevrolet’s lost arm. But it’s not the symbolism that is the strength of this book, it’s the raw and fearless voice of Maddy whose candid observations turn the ordinary into the poetic.” —Greg Langley, The Baton Rouge Advocate

"Vernon’s exquisite, original language is pure poetry. She is a fearless writer, as unafraid of the graphic sexual image as she is of the tender gesture. One grows to love these characters, to become haunted by their losses, their desires, their hopes...[A] wild and unforgettable and utterly new, strong language for tough truths.” —Susan Larson, The New Orleans Times-Picayune

“An empowering coming-of-age story based on acquiring the knowledge that all choices are going to cost you something...Vernon’s writing is sensual and tactile...What she does best is delve behind the scenes of a racially charged environment. She shows how the real effects of racism take hold behind closed doors and how racial oppression is intimately linked to sexuality, power, and self-love. Vernon leads the reader in to the most intimate places unflinchingly and without apology.” —Cara Hopkins, The Colorado Daily

“Eden takes the reader through a strange and religious experience...[It] deals heavily with how Maddy confronts mortality and learns to deal with the burdens of adulthood at an early age.” —John Saucier, The Daily Mississippi

“Conjuring a world that is both intoxicating and cruel...Eden is an unforgettable novel impelled by the poetry and power of a voice that is complex, lyrical and utterly true.” —The Portland Skanner

“Vernon’s use of symbolism is so well done that the reader must pause to consider it. Her characters are at once familiar and unique...There is much wisdom in this novel.” —Brenda Morey, The Long Island Press

“A gripping first novel...Vernon’s visceral prose commingles dirt, blood and other human stains to convey a haunting, and often erotic, sense of the blues as lived.” —Bill Friskics-Warren, Nashville Scene

“Powerful and raw... Vernon’s language is totally uninhibited... At times Vernon writes as if she were reinventing the language... She blends real with the surreal and merges the mythical and the supernatural as do García Márquez, Alejo Carpentier, and Toni Morrison.” —Diana Anhalt, The Texas Observer

“A powerful coming of age tale. It is an extraordinary novel, one that offers magnificent artistry in addition to the unveiling of Olympia Vernon as a gifted new writer. Eden is a reason to celebrate and is one of the highlights of my reading year.” —Thumper, aalbc.com

“Exemplary...Be prepared for a magical, enthralling, and lyrical foray through a forest of well-chosen, purposeful words...Eden proves to be enlightening, engaging, and awesome in its economy, its utter beauty, its truth...There is no question that Vernon is poised to share shelf space and a place in history with the blessed few classic literary greats.” —Tonya Marie Evans, QBR

“An angry, viscerally felt debut tale...Vernon’s prose is colloquial and fleshed with figurative leaps, the brutality of her images alternately fascinating and repellant...An eloquent, if bizarrely childlike, and unflinching coming-of-ager that bears mountains of grief, passion, and guilt.” —Kirkus Reviews

“With raw power and insight... Vernon’s idiosyncratic prose style... and Maddy’s stark, often surreal perception of the world... makes [Eden] stand out.” —Publishers Weekly

“As emotionally powerful as it is poetic, Vernon’s raw and fierce first novel possesses a beautiful, albeit brutal, lyricism and introduces a strong new Southern voice. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal

"Vernon’s writing is lyrical and emotionally powerful as she captures the tensions between the races and sexes in a small community of blacks eking out whatever living and dignity they can manage.” —Vanessa Bush, Booklist

“Olympia Vernon’s fiction is suffused with a profound poetry that is both uniquely placed and unforgettable. Her writing grows out of an insurgent magical-realist tradition, represented by Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou, but also by Gabriel García Márquez. Her characters come fully clothed in an angry and articulate poetry that only the greatest sensibilities have so far managed. In Olympia’s world the archetypal Afro-Americans of her predecessors meet the unfolding mysteries of Latin America. I believe that this young writer is joining that august company with stunning authority. Her fiction raises the already high bar of American fiction to a new level. I feel privileged to witness the coming onstage of such a talent.” —Andrei Codrescu

“Eden is that rare first novel incorporating raw energy as well as compelling characters and lovely prose. With erotic and spiritual vitality this novel’s narrative unfurls.” —Darcey Steinke

“Olympia Vernon writes of a rural, Southern town where women live so close to the land and so bold in their hearts that they share the pain, passion and occasionally, the peace, of all the nature that surrounds them. This is a world alive with rainstorms, green lizards, magnolia trees and love, in all it’s seasons. Eden marks the debut of a singular young writer.” —Veronica Chambers, author of Mama’s Girl

Olympia Vernon grew up in a small town on the border of Mississippi and Louisiana, the fourth of seven children. She has a degree in Criminal Justice, and an M.F.A. from Louisiana State University. Vernon has twice been granted the Matt Clark Memorial Scholarship and was nominated for the Robert O. Butler Award in Fiction in 2000. She lives in New Orleans.