“Waclawiak’s novel reinvents the immigration story. How to Get Into the Twin Palms movingly portrays a protagonist intent on both creating and destroying herself, on burning brightly even as she goes up in smoke.”
—Abigail Deutsch, New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
“The novel is beautifully written and so suffused with loneliness it makes you ache. Not only is How to Get into the Twin Palms about the overwhelming state that is displacement, it’s about what happens when loneliness becomes unbearable. Waclawiak writes through these tensions so elegantly, so tenderly, that How to Get Into the Twin Palms is, by far, one of my favorite books this year.”
—Roxane Gay, The Rumpus
“Excellent… Waclawiak’s book turns the traditional immigrant novel on its head, or maybe turns it inside out, or maybe just dyes its hair a nice shade of ‘Black Stilettos,’ turning its ears black in the process.”
—Flavorwire
“Waclawiak writes about loneliness, isolation, and determination in a refreshing and quirky way.”
—Vulture
“Masked by scenes of schmancy nightlife is a story about an immigrant wanting to belong. Barely getting by in LA on bingo-calling, Anya reinvents herself. With hair dye and a push-up bra, she tries to gain entry into the Twin Palms nightclub.”
—Marie Claire
“Sex-crazed, surreal, dreamy, violent, escapist, and always searching for some kind of truth. The book makes me think of questions I ask myself all the time. How can you separate yourself from the generations of women that have come before you? Is it even possible? Do you like these ancient parts of yourself? Are you proud of them or ashamed?”
—HTML Giant
“Karolina Waclawiak’s debut novel, How to Get Into the Twin Palms, presents a vividly drawn portrait of Los Angeles inhabited by alienated immigrants, Russian gangsters, and sex-starved bingo-addicted octogenarians—all enveloped by smoldering fires that threaten to burn the city down.”
—Christine Schutt, Poets & Writers
“Comical, but the story is deep, as Anya bumps up against the world in an attempt to define her identity as both an immigrant and a woman.”
—Shelf Unbound Magazine
“A taut debut… [that] strikes with the creeping suddenness of a brush fire.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Waclawiak takes the immigrant novel and spins it on its head. A great addition to 1.5 generation literature, beautifully written, funny and touching.”
—Gary Shteyngart
“We find two foreign realities: a ramshackle 2000s L.A. of uprooted Slavs, and one of its young inhabitants herself, who wants to belong there but doesn’t, anywhere. A good novel takes the reader into another universe, namely the book’s author, and that’s achieved via the marvelous simplicity, frank exactitude, and ineluctable fish parts of How To Get Into the Twin Palms. It makes one marvel at our messed-up multiverse anew.”
—Richard Hell
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