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Karen Thompson Walker

Biography

Karen Thompson Walker

Karen Thompson Walker’s New York Times bestseller, THE AGE OF MIRACLES, has been translated into 29 languages and was named one of the best books of the year by People, O: The Oprah Magazine and Financial Times, among other publications. Her second novel, THE DREAMERS, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and was named one of the best books of the year by Glamour, Real Simple, and Good Housekeeping.

Born and raised in San Diego, Walker is a graduate of UCLA and the Columbia MFA program. She is an associate professor of creative writing and lives with her husband, the novelist Casey Walker, and their two daughters in Portland, Oregon.

Karen Thompson Walker

Books by Karen Thompson Walker

The Strange Case of Jane O.
by Karen Thompson Walker - Fiction

A year after her child is born, Jane suffers a series of strange episodes: amnesia, premonitions, hallucinations and an inexplicable sense of dread. Three days after her first visit to a psychiatrist, Jane suddenly goes missing. A day later she is found unconscious in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, in the midst of what seems to be an episode of dissociative fugue. When she comes to, she has no memory of what has happened to her. Are Jane’s strange experiences the result of being overwhelmed by motherhood, or are they manifestations of a long-buried trauma from her past? Why is she having visions of a young man who died 20 years ago and who warns her of a disaster ahead? Jane’s symptoms lead her psychiatrist ever deeper into the farthest reaches of her mind and cause him to question everything he thinks he knows about so-called reality --- including events in his own life.

The Dreamers
by Karen Thompson Walker - Fiction

One night in an isolated college town, a first-year student stumbles into her dorm room, falls asleep --- and doesn’t wake up. Her roommate, Mei, cannot rouse her. Neither can the paramedics, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital. When a second girl falls asleep, and then a third, Mei finds herself thrust together with an eccentric classmate as panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. A young couple tries to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. Two sisters turn to each other for comfort as their survivalist father prepares for disaster. Those affected by the illness are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, higher than has ever been recorded before. They are dreaming heightened dreams --- but of what?

The Age of Miracles
by Karen Thompson Walker - Dystopian Fiction, Fiction

Julia and her family awake to discover that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, and the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet, as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life. As she adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues.

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