![]() ![]() ![]() Not the Lorax of movies-he’s only a distant cousin-but the original Lorax of paper and ink. She has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Lydia Millet is the author of novels including Mermaids in Paradise, Love in Infant Monkeys, and Magnificence. But she knows something isn’t right, either, as her conviction grows that her husband will stop at nothing to find her. She isn’t crazy-this character coldly and clinically researches her symptoms, and consults doctors who say nothing is wrong. She’s also hearing voices: Strange messages and mystic pronouncements fill her ears, though only when her daughter is awake. The narrator of Sweet Lamb of Heaven leaves her controlling, menacing husband, fleeing with her infant daughter all the way from Alaska to coastal Maine. We discussed how writers can embrace activism without compromising artistry, and what it means to build a compelling moral vision. Maybe the Lorax-that bossy, pedantic guilt-tripper-fails to deliver a convincing message, but the book succeeds where the character fails. Seuss’s personal favorite among his books, an overtly environmentalist fable that also manages to tell a haunting truth about the destructive power of greed. ![]() In a conversation for this series, Millet discussed The Lorax, Dr. 20 Undersung Crime Shows to Binge-Watch Sophie Gilbert ![]()
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