Roxy and Coco, a novel by Writing alum Terese Svoboda ’78, is forthcoming from West Virginia University Press in February 2024.
The novel follows the titular sisters, Roxy and Coco––two mythical bird women, or harpies––as they attempt to prevent global child abuse and avoid extinction. Often, in saving abused children, the two sisters murder difficult parents, drawing the attention of Interpol as it begins to investigate them.
Concurrently, Roxy develops feelings for her supervisor, Tim, who has lured her with his scent. Tim also happens to be on the payroll of a fraudulent conservationist who is interested in “collecting” Roxy. The novel reaches its climax at a gala for egg aficionados. Recommended for fans of Neil Gaiman and Karen Russell, Roxy and Coco deals with issues such as animal rights, the protection of children, racism, and mental illness.
“There are many mythic reimaginings out there, but I can guarantee you that Roxy and Coco is unlike anything you’ve read—Terese Svoboda’s harpies are winged avengers, a celestial task force who save kids who have been abused by their terrestrial protectors,” says Writing alumna and award-winning writer Karen Russell ’06. “Who but Svoboda with her talons descending from the clouds could wrest so much humor, poetry, and beauty from the abyss?”
Roxy and Coco is available for preorder here.
Terese Svoboda has written over twenty books of poetry, fiction, memoir, biography, and translation. She has received the Iowa Poetry Prize, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Bobst Prize in fiction, a National Endowment for the Humanities translation grant, the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, Jerome Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts media grants, an O. Henry Award, a Pushcart Prize for the essay, and three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships.
