Best of Apex Magazine - review #1 - Jackalope Wives by Ursula Vernon
H'okay... Act 1 Scene 1 - I bought this book from Amazon because it was in my 'saved for laters' and they were doing a BIGTHANKS offer and I wanted things I could only sensibly buy from Amazon and I didn't have much time to browse...
And it has two Ursula Vernon stories... one I knew I'd read already but I *like* books as a reading medium and a way of being able to reread stories that doesn't require hardware and an internet connection.
The first story in the collection is one I initially thought I'd skip talking about...
I enjoyed it before, and now, and didn't want to pick at the seams, but it happened against my will so...
THERE MAY BE SPOILERS - WORSE THERE MAY BE THINGS SAID WHICH SPOIL THE STORY - I WOULD SUGGEST READING IT FIRST AT
http://www.apex-magazine.com/jackalope-wives/ (or buy the book)
Jackalope Wives by Ursula Vernon
(Hmm, how to refer to the writer... Ursula? Vernon? Mme Vernon? Ms Vernon? - I'm trapped between overfamiliarity, being read as micro-aggressing, and gendered honorifics so I think I'll go with my standby for other things -- initials.)
UV is brilliant with author voice. Not that her character voices aren't good just that she has a fluid and easy-to-read style which sits you down, makes you a beverage of your choice, and passes the biscuits, all in the first paragraph/s. She's expositing like crazy in the first section but what your brain says is 'story', while your heart's saying 'niiiiice'. You fret, you sigh, you worry, you nod and are carried happily through to the ending by the power of her voice.
And yeah, that's hers and not something you should try, or want to try, to copy.
Jackalope Wives is a story about choice - and having choice taken from you. The Jackalope Wife herself makes only one clear choice, and that's not really a choice at all, especially as Grandma Harken's already taken her a long way to make that choice and there's no clear other option. But you kind of don't mind that while you read because the events are concerned with what happens to the Jackalope Wife but it's Grandma Harken's story. She is the one who has faced having no choice and choice. The Jackalope Wife is, by comparison, extremely passive -- the closest she came to choice was, perhaps, making it possible for the never-named grandson to catch her.
Yup, if she were a woman it'd be dodgier to say that but since she's really prey... nameless grandson has a point.
The problem with talking about this story is that a teeny ouroboros shows up if you stop being hypnotised by UV's voice and wonder why nameless-grandson caught himself a jackalope wife. And I'd love to say this without giving away something that according to the comments section at Apex was a major surprise -- but I can't. The grandson of a jackalope wife should surely have known that his grandmother wasn't happy with her first husband? Has she, or her daughter, never discussed this bit of history with him? It is what makes sense of his bringing the injured jackalope to his grandmother, unless he just thinks she's a witch... If he doesn't know she was a jackalope, why not? And if he does know... Is that why he thinks burning the skin is the thing to do to make a jackalope wife faithful? Did that never come up in conversation with, for example, his mother? Is that actually what went wrong for Grandma's captor - he didn't burn the skin so she was able to be unfaithful? That he doesn't know, or doesn't consider, the actual example of a jackalope wife is his grandmother and that she hated her first 'husband' and that she'd left him for his grandfather before the other guy was even dead is... tricky. Questions circle round and bite their own tails.
Because the plot requires that there be a betwixt and between jackalope. The rest is presumably retro-fitted to create the conditions required.
Nameless-grandson has to be neither so convinced of what he's about (mean) that he finishes burning the skin (but rescues it *and* gives it back to her), or so soft-hearted that he doesn't consider his plan at all. Grandma Harken's story starts with a jackalope damaged beyond repair and ends with her having shown herself to the reader and mended what was broken - nameless grandson gives her a reason to help beyond uncommon decency/fellow feeling from an old woman towards a young one. Her daughter provides a reason to have stayed and someone to talk to for one scene (while Father of Rabbits is there for the rest of the conversation, he could have been there whatever other choices were made for the first half of the story).
To answer the kind of questions that arise if you turn back and ask WTF was the grandson thinking of, once you know about Grandma, is to lose the enchantment of the voice, of the story, and walk the wrong way.
Trust the UV, trust the voice, stay on the path, and it's an entirely and perfectly entertaining experience.
Hopefully, by the time I next read it, I will have forgotten all about the WTF of nameless* and be able to enjoy Grandma's tale.
* her grandson has no name because naming him might make you consider him as a character not an event - note, his mother has a name, so does every other character appearing except the grandson and jackalope wife. Even his mother doesn't say his name when talking about him.
And it has two Ursula Vernon stories... one I knew I'd read already but I *like* books as a reading medium and a way of being able to reread stories that doesn't require hardware and an internet connection.
The first story in the collection is one I initially thought I'd skip talking about...
I enjoyed it before, and now, and didn't want to pick at the seams, but it happened against my will so...
THERE MAY BE SPOILERS - WORSE THERE MAY BE THINGS SAID WHICH SPOIL THE STORY - I WOULD SUGGEST READING IT FIRST AT
http://www.apex-magazine.com/jackalope-wives/ (or buy the book)
Jackalope Wives by Ursula Vernon
(Hmm, how to refer to the writer... Ursula? Vernon? Mme Vernon? Ms Vernon? - I'm trapped between overfamiliarity, being read as micro-aggressing, and gendered honorifics so I think I'll go with my standby for other things -- initials.)
UV is brilliant with author voice. Not that her character voices aren't good just that she has a fluid and easy-to-read style which sits you down, makes you a beverage of your choice, and passes the biscuits, all in the first paragraph/s. She's expositing like crazy in the first section but what your brain says is 'story', while your heart's saying 'niiiiice'. You fret, you sigh, you worry, you nod and are carried happily through to the ending by the power of her voice.
And yeah, that's hers and not something you should try, or want to try, to copy.
Jackalope Wives is a story about choice - and having choice taken from you. The Jackalope Wife herself makes only one clear choice, and that's not really a choice at all, especially as Grandma Harken's already taken her a long way to make that choice and there's no clear other option. But you kind of don't mind that while you read because the events are concerned with what happens to the Jackalope Wife but it's Grandma Harken's story. She is the one who has faced having no choice and choice. The Jackalope Wife is, by comparison, extremely passive -- the closest she came to choice was, perhaps, making it possible for the never-named grandson to catch her.
Yup, if she were a woman it'd be dodgier to say that but since she's really prey... nameless grandson has a point.
The problem with talking about this story is that a teeny ouroboros shows up if you stop being hypnotised by UV's voice and wonder why nameless-grandson caught himself a jackalope wife. And I'd love to say this without giving away something that according to the comments section at Apex was a major surprise -- but I can't. The grandson of a jackalope wife should surely have known that his grandmother wasn't happy with her first husband? Has she, or her daughter, never discussed this bit of history with him? It is what makes sense of his bringing the injured jackalope to his grandmother, unless he just thinks she's a witch... If he doesn't know she was a jackalope, why not? And if he does know... Is that why he thinks burning the skin is the thing to do to make a jackalope wife faithful? Did that never come up in conversation with, for example, his mother? Is that actually what went wrong for Grandma's captor - he didn't burn the skin so she was able to be unfaithful? That he doesn't know, or doesn't consider, the actual example of a jackalope wife is his grandmother and that she hated her first 'husband' and that she'd left him for his grandfather before the other guy was even dead is... tricky. Questions circle round and bite their own tails.
Because the plot requires that there be a betwixt and between jackalope. The rest is presumably retro-fitted to create the conditions required.
Nameless-grandson has to be neither so convinced of what he's about (mean) that he finishes burning the skin (but rescues it *and* gives it back to her), or so soft-hearted that he doesn't consider his plan at all. Grandma Harken's story starts with a jackalope damaged beyond repair and ends with her having shown herself to the reader and mended what was broken - nameless grandson gives her a reason to help beyond uncommon decency/fellow feeling from an old woman towards a young one. Her daughter provides a reason to have stayed and someone to talk to for one scene (while Father of Rabbits is there for the rest of the conversation, he could have been there whatever other choices were made for the first half of the story).
To answer the kind of questions that arise if you turn back and ask WTF was the grandson thinking of, once you know about Grandma, is to lose the enchantment of the voice, of the story, and walk the wrong way.
Trust the UV, trust the voice, stay on the path, and it's an entirely and perfectly entertaining experience.
Hopefully, by the time I next read it, I will have forgotten all about the WTF of nameless* and be able to enjoy Grandma's tale.
* her grandson has no name because naming him might make you consider him as a character not an event - note, his mother has a name, so does every other character appearing except the grandson and jackalope wife. Even his mother doesn't say his name when talking about him.