“Christina was a girl both young and old for her years; she had never shed the breathless curiosity of a child assembling the taxonomy of the universe—what is that? where did that come from? why is that like that and not another way and what is its orientation with every other thing? why? why? why?—and the only person her age she knew who wanted nothing more when she grew up than to be a Russian novelist.” —Brian McGreevy, Hemlock Grove