03/14/2016
Botany and human sexuality regularly intersect, stimulating the characters and the reader alike in Thomas’s (PopCo) newest. The story opens with a long and multilayered chapter set at the funeral of elderly Oleander Gardener, whose country estate in England, Namaste House, includes a large orangery. The childless Oleander has several nieces and nephews—Fleur, Clematis, Charles, Lavender, Plum, and Bryony—who catch up, share thoughts on the future, and argue at the funeral. Questions of inheritance and a mysterious seed pod that each of her heirs receives constitute the framework of a tenuous plot, but these are primarily MacGuffins. Fueled by intellectual curiosity and joie de vivre (as much Thomas’s as her characters’), the story fans out to the heirs, primarily Fleur and Bryony. Each views the world through a naturalist lens that echoes the deceased Oleander. Botanist Fleur has a discussion with a fellow passenger on an airplane, the topic of which veers from a Hebridean spotted orchid to Rihanna and Kate Moss. And Bryony, whose daughter, Holly, is experiencing the daily changes of puberty with wonder, sees human sexual parts nearly everywhere in plants. Ebullient prose, engaging characters, lively imagination, illuminating details—Thomas is an original, and her novel is consistently entertaining. (May)
Thomas has a gift for interior monologues that flow steadily and easily, carrying you through a character’s mental landscape, full of vivid imagery and digressions that flirt with spinning out of control but never quite go too far.” —The New York Times Book Review
“A weird, wonderful, and often wickedly funny family mini-saga… Bold, charming and inventive, The Seed Collectors will not only please Thomas’s American fans, it may win her new ones as well.” —The Boston Globe
“Her prose is splendidly alive, full of unexpected phrases and delicious cadences . . . like Pratchett, Thomas blends her flippancy and her philosophy perfectly. A fantastical family saga.” —The Guardian
“Scarlett Thomas has a skillful way of blending fantasy and realism . . . The Seed Collectors is consistently enjoyable.” —Financial Times
“She has woven her distinct brand of mystery and intrigue into a complex family saga.” —The Observer
“A searing family saga with dollops of magical realism, The Seed Collectors is an exquisitely nimble novel about self-knowledge, love and self-love, and the many ways we shape our lives.” —Claire Fallon, Huffington Post
“[Thomas’] newest novel, The Seed Collectors, is laugh-out-loud funny for pages at a time. As British reviewers noted, it fits securely into the great tradition of the modern British comic novel... Thomas is more interested in rubbing words and ideas together and seeing what sparks they throw off than in telling stories that reinforce what we already think and end happily for likeable characters.” —The Millions
“Thomas succeeds in creating a funny yet poignant tale that is as much about yearning for connection as it is about seeking enlightenment. Kudos to her for penning a splendid novel that blends botany, philosophy, and mystery.” —Library Journal, starred review
“[A] hyperbolic, raunchy, hilarious immersion in the connected lives of some intensely imperfect people… Thomas is a literary star in the United Kingdom. She should be in the United States, too.” —Kirkus, starred review
“Acclaimed British writer Thomas uses a large cast of dysfunctional characters to explore concepts of connectedness and responsibility. With equal parts family saga, intriguing mystery, and existential foray, this magical tale of love and illumination will keep readers on their toes.” —Booklist
“Ebullient prose, engaging characters, lively imagination, illuminating details — Thomas is an original, and her novel is consistently entertaining.” —Publishers Weekly
“The Seed Collectors is entrancing: it’s a sharply observed contemporary novel of real people and real plants and real desire and real hurt, and it’s somehow also one of the sharpest fantasies I’ve encountered. A sour-and-sweet delight.” —Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods
“Simultaneously sharply-drawn and dreamlike, often hilarious, The Seed Collectors is a baroque family saga of human fallibility, love, eccentricity, sex, spirituality, and of a lost, legendary, coincidentally lethal route to absolute transcendence. Scarlett Thomas is a splendid novelist.” —William Gibson, author of Neuromancer
★ 05/15/2016
Dominated by women (all named for flowers), along with their spouses, lovers, and offspring, this new work from Thomas (The End of Mr. Y) places the greater Gardener family on course for a chaotic contemporary adventure following the death of matriarch Oleander. The search for, or lurch toward, enlightenment is central to a narrative set largely in contemporary London and is critically important to those family members whose parents disappeared after seeking mysterious seed pods that promise a shortcut to spiritual illumination or to death. The entangled narratives of so many reveal serious character flaws (e.g., Byrony's secret drinking and binge shopping, Fleur's incestuous feelings, and Charlie's sexual aggression). Their flaws make them believable and certainly entertaining. VERDICT Thomas succeeds in creating a funny yet poignant tale that is as much about yearning for connection as it is about seeking enlightenment. Kudos to her for penning a splendid novel that blends botany, philosophy, and mystery.—Faye Chadwell, Oregon State Univ., Corvallis
★ 2016-02-11
A gnarly family drama from the acclaimed author of Our Tragic Universe (2010) and The End of Mr. Y (2006). It's probably best to start by explaining who will hate this book. Readers who require likable protagonists will hate this book; the members of the Gardener family and its satellites are, almost without exception, a catalog of human weakness and vice. Readers who are unsettled by formal experiment will hate this; Thomas uses a cacophony of voices, moves around in time, and frequently interrupts the narrative with thought experiments. And readers who shy away from profanity and perversity will hate this book; freewheeling British usage of language that is intensely objectionable to American ears just compounds the problem. So, the colonial audience for this book is, perhaps, narrow. But, O! How that audience will love it! Thomas' latest is a multigenerational saga, but it's also an extended meditation on the Buddhist concept of attachment. And it's a hyperbolic, raunchy, hilarious immersion in the connected lives of some intensely imperfect people. The catalyst for the story is the death of Oleander Gardener, the guiding spirit of both her botanist family and a spiritual retreat that houses various refugees, weirdos, and the occasional celebrity. Oleander's bequests include her home, a hunting lodge in the Outer Hebrides, and the seedpods of a plant that several members of her family died trying to find. Oleander is dead, but her presence looms, and the people she's left behind are compelled to figure out what they're going to do with their complicated inheritance—a question that expands beyond Oleander's material gifts and reaches into the Gardener family's past. Thomas is a literary star in the United Kingdom. She should be in the United States, too.
With each novel, Thomas's ambitions have grown larger, and this is her most sophisticated... in a world of fading wunderkinds, Scarlett Thomas is proving to be the real deal
This magical family saga will cement Thomas' position at the literary top table
A delightful compound of fantasy and traditional family saga... a modern fairytale, with flashes that are savagely funny
Extremely good fun...riotous, gorgeous, full of flamboyant escapades
Fun and thoughtful
She has woven her distinct brand of mystery and intrigue into a complex family saga
Smart, talented, inventive, and diverting . . . This is Thomas' most accomplished novel yet. There is a question at the heart of this novel . . . that captures the paradox of being human
Positively luminous - funny, daring, fizzing with ideas and altogether captivating
A family saga of human fallibility, love, eccentricity, sex, spirituality, and of a lost, legendary, coincidentally lethal route to absolute transcendence . . . [Thomas] is a splendid novelist
A mindbending novel of family drama
A rewarding family saga
Her prose is splendidly alive, full of unexpected phrases and delicious cadences . . . like Pratchett, Thomas blends her flippancy and her philosophy perfectly. A fantastical family saga
How I love her work!
A smart and witty family drama, taking in secrets, sex, suicide, celebrity and the meaning of life
Entrancing
Thomas has the mesmerising power of a great storyteller
A far-out botanical adventure in ways which are brutally funny and profound all at once. Barbed, casually genius, philosophical and intensely readable. A joy
Sharp writing and sharper wit
You won't read a livelier tale about sex, death and out-of-body experiences all year
Filthily gorgeous . . . Imagine Muriel Spark's disreputable niece
