the ham-fisted and mundane (“She was
smart, and he’d enjoyed hearing her intelligent observations of the crime scene.
And did he mention she was sexy as hell?
It was her eyes. Those beautiful sexy
eyes”), and Anna’s personality could use a
little roughening around the edges. Still,
as betrayals and sinister secrets slowly
come to light, this first in a planned series
unfolds into a satisfying, if not altogether
memorable, mystery. (BookLife)
SF/Fantasy/Horror
The Penguin Book of the Undead:
Fifteen Hundred Years of
Supernatural Encounters
Edited by Scott G. Bruce. Penguin, $17 trade
paper (284p) ISBN 978-0-14-310768-2
Spanning the years between the writing
of Homer’s Odyssey (ca. 700 B.C.E.) and
Shakespeare’s Hamlet (ca. 1599 C.E.), the
contents of this exceptionally well-curated
compilation show that the wide variety of
accounts of the undead have been rampant
in literature long before the Gothic era.
Pliny the Younger, in a letter from the
first century C.E., reports the exorcism of
a chain-rattling ghost by interring the
deceased’s unburied remains. William of
Newburgh, writing in the 13th century
C.E., relates tales of rampaging revenants
who can only be disposed of through the
decapitation and evisceration of their
corpses. In the book’s grimmest account,
the first-century C.E. poet Lucan writes
about a necromancer who reanimates a
soldier’s corpse to foretell the future. Bruce
has chosen selections from numerous
cultures, including ancient Greece,
Anglo-Norman England, and medieval
Scandinavia, with an emphasis on ecclesiastical writings whose frights served
morally instructive purposes. His approach
is scholarly, but he presents the contents
with an enthusiasm that makes these
mostly obscure works accessible to the
casual reader. (Oct.)
The Ferryman Institute
Colin Gigl. Gallery, $16 trade paper (432p)
ISBN 978-1-5011-2532-4
“BE A FERRYMAN OR SAVE THE
GIRL. YOUR CHOICE.” Charlie
Dawson receives a letter with these
unusual instructions right before Alice
The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales
Edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe. Saga, $24.99 (392p) ISBN 978-1-4814-7531-0
Drawing on the mythical Old West, familiar Europe- an stories, and recently translated Middle Eastern tales, these stories provide a rich sample of what awaits us in the world of fairy tales. Like many
anthologies, it is something of a mixed bag, but the
standout stories are well worth making time to read.
These include a couple of highly literary and unusual
stories based on tales from two volumes that became
available in English only in the past few years: Genevieve
Valentine’s “Familiaris” is based on “The Wolves,” collected by Franz Xaver von Schonworth and published
in The Turnip Princess, and Sofia Samatar’s “Mahliya and Mauhub and the
White-Footed Gazelle” reflects on a story from the Arabic Tales of the Marvelous
and News of the Strange. Valentine’s and Samatar’s stories distinguish themselves
in their multilayered reflections on the dynamics of telling tales. “Why are you
people so hungry for marvels?” Samatar’s narrator asks, while drawing our attention
to the marvels and horrors we take for granted around us. Valentine dramatizes
as part of her story the interaction between Schonworth and his unnamed female
storyteller in a world where women’s choices are sharply abridged.
Also excellent are Amal El-Mohtar’s “Seasons of Glass and Iron,” which explores
the power of women’s friendships to rewrite—or at least expose—misogynist
ideologies, and Catherynne M. Valente’s “Bad Girl, the Deadman, and the Wheel
of Fortune,” which rewrites one of the most disturbing of the traditional European
fairy tales, “The Armless Maiden.” Valente’s protagonist is a canny but terrified
child, reminding us that “happily ever after” comes only after experiences we
would never wish on someone so young.
The anthology ends with Naomi Novik’s “Spinning Silver,” in which Novik
confronts the anti-Semitism that Jane Yolen and others have found latent in the
Grimms’ version of “Rumplestiltzkin,” rewriting it into a tale of Jewish heroism
in the face of hostility from gentile neighbors as well as magical threats from fairy
folk. Novik’s ability to weave together sympathy for the story’s traditional antagonist, the little man who can produce gold on a whim, and traditional heroine,
the daughter who is forced to produce in order to save herself and her father, by
combining them in the person of her protagonist, Miryem, makes this story a
virtuoso turn.
Of course, no anthology is perfect, and some stories do not meet the high standards set by the ones I mention above. Similarly, Parisien and Wolfe’s introduction
falls flat; though short, it rambles, and it fails to discuss the book’s relationship
to the many volumes of fairy tale stories that have gone before. Nonetheless, the
wide range of tales, settings, and perspectives sampled here demonstrate that
fairy tales remain a rich source for writers, one that we have only begun to tap.
Veronica Schanoes is a writer and an associate professor in the department of English at
Queens College, CUNY, where she specializes in fairy tales and children’s literature.
[Signature]
Reviewed by Veronica Schanoes
