Susan Coll

Book Review
The Washington Post
‘Le Divorce’ was a ’90s sensation. Diane Johnson is back again with another hit.

The opening scene is perfection. We meet the eponymous heroine of Diane Johnson’s latest novel, “Lorna Mott Comes Home,” as she rides in the back of a taxi, en route to the train station in Lyon. Lorna, an American woman “of a certain age,” asks the driver to stop so she can observe the aftermath of a mudslide that has unearthed coffins, bursting them open and exposing corpses, bones and “a huge, sticky hillock of treacherous clay” in the village of Pont-les-Puits, where she has lived with her French husband for 20 years.

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Opinion Editorial
The Washington Post
Susan Coll works at Politics & Prose Bookstore and would like to emphasize that this essay should be shelved under fiction. Her novel, "The Stager," will be published in July.
Opinion Editorial
The Washington Post
A recent e-mail from Amazon.com made my heart start racing. My order had been shipped, it said, and "Living Abroad in Costa Rica" would arrive any day.
TheMillions.com
Shortly after I turned in my new novel, The Stager, my editor sent me a startling black and white photograph of a woman in a chair. The woman is in a state of graceful repose, with long legs extending into strappy black shoes. She is sultry, sexy, and extremely unsettling. She appears to be beautiful even though you cannot see her face because she is wearing a mask. The art director was suggesting updating this image to use as the cover of the book.
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