About Abbott
Or you may know me as Karen Abbott
Abbott Kahler (formerly Karen Abbott) is the New York Times bestselling author of four works of narrative nonfiction and one novel, WHERE YOU END, a twisted tale of identical twins. Her nonfiction books explore scandalous chapters and characters in history: enterprising madams and a world-famous brothel; a literary burlesque queen; daring women Civil War spies; and a flamboyant bootlegger who inspired Jay Gatsby. EDEN UNDONE, coming September 24, tells the stranger-than-fiction (but all true!) story of a 1930s Utopian community in the Galapagos.
DEBUT FICTION
WHERE YOU END
"Where You End is haunting, suspenseful and beautifully written—a modern-day gothic that explores the peculiar bond between twin sisters and the twisted power of cults; the mysteries of memory and the ineluctable pull of the past. It unnerves and beguiles in ways reminiscent of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and David Lynch’s "Twin Peaks"—but it’s a true original."
— MARGARET TALBOT
Staff writer for The New Yorker
LATEST NON-FICTION
THE GHOSTS
OF EDEN PARK
"An exhaustively researched, hugely entertaining work of popular history that…exhumes a colorful crew of once-celebrated characters and restores them to full-blooded life… [Abbott’s] métier is narrative nonfiction and—as this vibrant, enormously readable book makes clear—she is one of the masters of the art.”