Magic For Beginners.
Magic For Beginners, by Kelly Link.
MFB is the first Link collection I read. (Her earlier collection, Stranger Things Happen, was a victim of a leaky roof, and was ruined). While not all of the novellas included here are perfect, all of them are worth reading for the clever turns of phrase, strong characterizations, and truly odd happenings. Link is the literary equivalent of Bjork. Like the Icelandic composer's works, Link stories mix up the magical and the mundane in ways that are both goofy and sinister at the same time. She has her fictional antecedents in Jeanette Winterson, Jonathan Carroll, and Alice Hoffman.
It's hard to figure why the fiction works, but it does. Take "The Faery Handbag," one of the best pieces in MFB. An Eastern European village hides in a grandmother's magical handbag that gets lost. The grand-daughter goes searching for the missing purse in thrift stores around town. But it's not a quest story. Rather, it is a guide to thriftstore shopping, a tale of grandmothers and granddaughters, and a love story, all rolled into one. The magic is both whimsical and scary-like fairytale magic should be. "The Horlak" features zombies who visit an all night WalMart-like store. But it's really a love triangle story about the two only employees in the store (who end up making the store their home) and their one repeat customer. The zombies are ciphers, but they're also zombies. They wander through the store mumbling non-sequiturs that would make Steven Wright proud. Somewhere in there, Link also manages to poke fun at marketing and focus groups. It's a horror story, but the horror is more about alienation than traditional blood and guts. But she has those, too. "Catskin" is more of a traditional fantasy, concerning a dying witch, her scions, and a truly wicked cat. It's a pastiche of the Brothers Grimm, shot through with mordant, postmodernist humor. Medieval kingdoms and witches compete with suburban houses and old cars. "Stone Animals" is a John Cheever middleclass angst story as written by Shirley Jackson. It is a unique and haunting haunted house trope.
The prose and dialogue in these tales are spot on. The tone is dry, raconteurial, and slightly impish. Link's magic has a sense of wonder that is missing in much fantasy fiction. I suppose that I have to replace Stranger Things Happen.
MFB is the first Link collection I read. (Her earlier collection, Stranger Things Happen, was a victim of a leaky roof, and was ruined). While not all of the novellas included here are perfect, all of them are worth reading for the clever turns of phrase, strong characterizations, and truly odd happenings. Link is the literary equivalent of Bjork. Like the Icelandic composer's works, Link stories mix up the magical and the mundane in ways that are both goofy and sinister at the same time. She has her fictional antecedents in Jeanette Winterson, Jonathan Carroll, and Alice Hoffman.
It's hard to figure why the fiction works, but it does. Take "The Faery Handbag," one of the best pieces in MFB. An Eastern European village hides in a grandmother's magical handbag that gets lost. The grand-daughter goes searching for the missing purse in thrift stores around town. But it's not a quest story. Rather, it is a guide to thriftstore shopping, a tale of grandmothers and granddaughters, and a love story, all rolled into one. The magic is both whimsical and scary-like fairytale magic should be. "The Horlak" features zombies who visit an all night WalMart-like store. But it's really a love triangle story about the two only employees in the store (who end up making the store their home) and their one repeat customer. The zombies are ciphers, but they're also zombies. They wander through the store mumbling non-sequiturs that would make Steven Wright proud. Somewhere in there, Link also manages to poke fun at marketing and focus groups. It's a horror story, but the horror is more about alienation than traditional blood and guts. But she has those, too. "Catskin" is more of a traditional fantasy, concerning a dying witch, her scions, and a truly wicked cat. It's a pastiche of the Brothers Grimm, shot through with mordant, postmodernist humor. Medieval kingdoms and witches compete with suburban houses and old cars. "Stone Animals" is a John Cheever middleclass angst story as written by Shirley Jackson. It is a unique and haunting haunted house trope.
The prose and dialogue in these tales are spot on. The tone is dry, raconteurial, and slightly impish. Link's magic has a sense of wonder that is missing in much fantasy fiction. I suppose that I have to replace Stranger Things Happen.