List of All Possible Desires: A Novel in Stories - The Rainey Royal Cycle by Dylan Landis Hardcover

Book Synopsis

For fans of Mary Gaitskill and Lauren Groff.

In postwar Paris, a boy is seduced by his mysterious nanny into a world of adult secrets. In 1950s New York, a young caretaker struggles to protect her charge, a married woman weakened by a recent stroke, as new bruises appear each day on her body. In 1969, a fragile cousin wanders into the Royals' jazz-soaked townhouse, where music, sex, and ruin intertwine. And at the heart of these stories is Rainey Royal herself, struggling to come of age in Greenwich Village, reinventing herself as an artist despite neglect, even cruelty in the tumultuous '70s and '80s. By turns shocking, erotic, and deeply humane, List of All Possible Desires is a haunting portrait of family and history--written with Landis's trademark beauty and precision.

This publication is joined by special expanded reissues of the other two books in the Rainey Royal Cycle, the novel in stories Normal People Don't Live Like This and the novel Rainey Royal. Each book can be read on its own, but together they echo and amplify one another, creating a world of almost unbearable richness and intensity.

Review Quotes

"Dazzling, electrifying, and razor-sharp, this collection brilliantly expands Dylan Landis's New York of the 1970s and '80s, a world where fragile, defiant girls grow into clear-eyed, truth-seeking women. Gorgeously crafted and fearlessly told--I savored every page."
--Natalie Baszile, author of Queen Sugar

"The Rainey Royal books are the greatest literary puzzle since the Neapolitan Quartet, full of complex relationships among women and within families, revealing their full meaning only once you place the final piece."
--Pamela Redmond, New York Times bestselling author of Younger

"Dylan Landis is the quintessential bard of the do-it-yourself morality of the seventies, its experiments and failures. These twelve stories achingly demonstrate how wounded children become wounding adults, toggling between states of burn-it-to-the-ground rebellion and moments of pure grace."
--Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander

"These stories have the elegance and assurance of classics--individual jewels strung together into a stunning and mesmeric whole."
--Dan Chaon, author of One of Us

"The entwined, can't-put-them-down stories of List of All Possible Desires expand and relayer the endlessly compelling world of Rainey Royal. Rainey is all of us, our longings and contradictions, our frailties and strengths, our determination to take our mess of a life into our own hands and make of it an authentic work of art. These stories slice your heart in two--but then Landis heals and inspires with her exquisite prose, deep insight, and literary grace."
--Tara Ison, author of At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf

Praise for the Rainey Royal cycle

"[Rainey is] achingly vulnerable and cruelly intimidating."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Dylan Landis's Rainey Royal is like its heroine: fierce, winning, and sharp as a blade."
--Vanity Fair

"Rainey will remain in my mind forever as one of my favorite characters."
--ELLE

About the Author