Reviews of Celebrities in Disgrace

“An avalanche of sexual tension propels these narratives. The title novella, which features a woman who wants to portray the skater Nancy Kerrigan in a television movie, is a miniature masterpiece.” —The New York Times Book Review

Searle’s book examines the effects of pop culture on private lives. The pieces are unpredictable and ripe with unique prose, and often there’s no telling how a story will end.” —Book Magazine

“All the characters in Elizabeth Searle’s colorful and creepy collection Celebrities in Disgrace are obsessed with fame and consequently with themselves. It’s a harsh little book—every story has a horrific ending—but Searle is able to tap into that elusive place where humor and tragedy converge. Like a car wreck, Celebrities holds us with guilty fascination, proving Searle’s point that celebrity obsession in our society serves a basic need.” —Time Out New York

“A vivid, distinctive story collection. . . . Searle is a skillful writer with a gift for creating atypical characters and themes.” —Booklist

“Celebrities in Disgrace demands attention for its nuance as well as its wallop.” —Kirkus Reviews

 “Elizabeth Searle gives us powerful stories about the verve with which we perform our lives, and the cruelties with which we observe ourselves. These are sexy stories that are smart about sex, unblinking—sometimes remarkably funny—investigations of appetite.” —Frederick Busch

 “Elizabeth Searle’s stories are physical experiences. They seem to have been whispered to her by visitors of some sort from a world both frighteningly ordinary and refreshingly without bearing on our own. It is a world of secrets, in which the truth often carries only to the limits of the body, of flesh. These stories come to us wrapped in narrative forms that simply obey no rules but their own: a single glance exploding fractally into many lives. Kids, do not try this at home.” —Christopher Tilghman

“Celebrities in Disgrace is a sparkling collection by a writer with a unique voice and an utterly contemporary sensibility.” —Margot Livesey