The Twist in the Ever After

Writers like Brian Evenson,Susan Shuh-Lien Bynum,Hiromi Ito and Joyce Carol Oates base their pieces on established stories. Evenson’s ‘Dapplegrim’,based on a Norwegian folktale,is dark,obsessive and full of bloodshed. Ito’s ‘I Am Anjuhimeko’ is powerful and epic in scope. Oates and Bynum tackle stories previously riffed off by Carter but take them in different directions. Oates’ version of the Bluebeard myth is clever and surprising,while Bynum’s ‘The Erlking’ is one of the highlights of the anthology.  

The Grimm brothers’ ‘The Six Swans’ forms the starting point for Shelley Jackson’s ‘The Swan Brothers’ — hands down,the best thing in the book,partly story,partly a loosely connected set of observations about the fairy tale. Here,for example,are Things You Learn From Reading: 

“Women are trouble — if it isn’t an evil wife,it’s an evil stepmother. Or mother-in-law. Mothers are usually all right,unless they’re witches — watch out for witches.

You might be all right with kings,princes,and fathers,unless,as is usually the case,they’re under the influence of someone else,usually a woman. Men are weak. Sometimes they rescue you,but they always have help — from ants or birds or women. Sometimes you rescue them. This is kind of sweet.

You can trust animals. Sometimes they turn into people,but don’t hold that against them. Children better watch out.”

To retell a story inevitably leads to thinking about how narratives work,and many of the pieces in this collection are,like Jackson’s,stories about stories. Kim Addonizio’s ‘Ever After’ has seven dwarves reading ‘Snow White’ as a religious text. Karen Brennan’s ‘The Snow Queen’ and Francine Prose’s ‘Hansel and Gretel’ both have their narrators thinking through their relationships with fairy tales. The fascinating notes from the authors at the end of each story provide more insight.

There are some real treasures in this collection,with all the menace and magic of the traditional fairy tale.