Cloud Cuckoo Land
“Cloud Cuckoo Land is an absolute original by a fresh new voice in fiction.”
— Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides and My Losing Season
• Winner of Fiction Honors in the 2003 Massachusetts Book Awards
• Winner of River City Publishing’s Fred Bonnie Award for Best First Novel
• Finalist for both the Independent Publisher (IPPY) Awards and the Foreword Fiction Book of the Year.
Moving from the blues and country music scene of East Texas in the late 1970s to the underground rock scene of the Northeast in the 1980s, Cloud Cuckoo Land tells the story of a young female street musician’s search for home—and the unlikely place where she finds one.
Reviews and Praise
“Music infuses this novel—from the Easter pageant where young Miri shines, to the world of 1980s indie rock bands. For readers, love of music is optional. Miri is the draw. At once innocent and cunning, living by a moral code forged by instinct, heart, and pragmatism, she evokes other young protagonists, from Huck Finn to Holden Caulfield to Bone in Russell Banks’ Rule of the Bone.”
— Karen Jenkins Holt, in ForeWord magazine
“Lisa Borders is a born storyteller, and Cloud Cuckoo Land marks a grand debut by this talented writer. At once a coming of age story and a chronicle of a bygone musical age, Cloud Cuckoo Land is remarkable for its scope, style, and wonderfully big heart.”
— Bret Lott, author of Jewel
“This redemptive story of a talented young woman’s musical journey will make your heart sing.”
— Cassandra King, author of The Sunday Wife
“Lisa Borders is that rare kind of writer readers long for: incisive, funny, compassionate and altogether inimitable. Her short stories are always so seductive and engaging, the reader is reluctant to leave the page. Now Lisa Borders has given readers something to shout about, a masterful first novel filled with characters we can sink our teeth and hearts into. Cloud Cuckoo Land and its wonderful heroine Miri are unforgettable.”
— Denise Gess, author of Firestorm at Peshtigo