'The smartest and most challenging book I've read by anyone our age ... it's just plain hard to put down' Dave Eggars *'A story that is savage and funny. The book is improbable, sure, but so wildly inventive that you hardly care' New York Times Book Review *'Whip-smart, weird, and dangerously readable ... [a] beautiful monster of a book ... Remember when fiction was supposed to be this much fun?' The Village Voice *'Julavits is an energetic, playful writer, and one can imagine she crafted The Effect of Living Backwards for repeated reading, with each read through revealing new Nabokovian tricks and riddles' San Francisco Chronicle

Heidi Julavits is the author of THE MINERAL PALACE. Her writing has appeared in The Best American Short Stories 1999, Esquire, Zoetrope, McSweeney's and Time. She lives in New York City and Maine.