My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales

Kate Bernheimer’s ambitious brainchild My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me is a mostly delightful compilation of fairy-tale-inspired stories. The contributors include authors from Russia and Japan and widely recognizable names such as Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike. Narrative styles are just as varied. Some are simple retellings; others contain only a wisp of the original fairy tale.

Kate Bernheimer and Gregory Maguire set the stage with their introductions. One can simply flip to the back of the book to learn more about the authors or to the table of contents for a list of stories and their origins. Each story has a brief afterward by the authors describing their inspirations. With such care given to selecting talented authors from around the world, it is surprising that no African tales are featured.

A few of these yarns don’t work without knowledge about their sources. Many of these writers milk the graphic grimness of tales for all they are worth, with results both memorable and tedious. Several stories are so disjointed they lose their purpose, and others feel too self-conscious.

On the whole, though, the creativity makes for a fascinating read. Here are a few of the book’s highlights. [Note: I unintentionally tended to lean towards the more realistic stories.]

Francine Prose’s take on “Hansel and Gretel” depicts a young woman’s visit to a wild artist’s Vermont home. This artist is her husband’s ex-girlfriend’s mother.

“The Warm Mouth” by Joyelle McSweeney is a nightmarish interpretation of “The Bremen Town Musicians.” A “mouth” collects diverse items such as dead bodies and road kill. This horrifying tale is reminiscent of a sickening dream.

“Dappelgrim” by Brian Evenson is a simple, Freudian retelling of the original, a dark story about a monstrous horse and its master – or is the horse the master?

“What the Conch Shell Sings When the Body Is Gone” by Katherine Vaz is one of this book’s best. This poignant meditation on marriage, friendship, and life shifts “The Little Mermaid” to the present day by focusing on a couple of cooks who are obsessed with water.

“Pleasure Boating in Lituya Bay” (based on the Italian “Jump into My Sack”) by Jim Shepard may be the jewel in this collection. This searing short story connects the narrator’s detachment from his life to earlier traumas, and his marital tension to the tension in Alaska’s unstable Lituya Bay.

“The Color Master” (Perrault’s “Donkeyskin”) by Aimee Bender is a lighter, more fanciful story about a group whose job is to seek and mix colors for royalty.

“A Case Study of Emergency Room Procedure and Risk Management by Hospital Staff Members in the Urban Facility” by Stacey Richter is an amusing version of “Cinderella” as told in medical records. Here princesses are drug addicts, and evil princes are dealers.

“Psyche’s Dark Night” (Cupid and Psyche) by Francesca Lia Block is a straightforward and romantic tale of an uncertain and aching love between an aspiring actor and a school teacher.

“The First Day of Snow” (“A Kamikakushi Tale”) by Naoko Awa is a short and somewhat mesmerizing tale about a girl who tries to free herself from the march of the “snow rabbits.” It’s difficult to get their chant, “one foot, two feet, hop, hop, hop,” out of one’s head.

One can either read this collection straight through or skip around. A few stories are chores, but most are surreal, hilarious, and disturbing. My Mother She Killed Me is actually quite a fun read.

The Plague of Doves, by Louise Erdrich

The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, and Christian Science Monitor named Louise Erdrich’s The Plague of Doves a best book of the year. Narrated by several individuals, her novel spans the history of Pluto, North Dakota and an adjacent Ojibwe reservation. Evelina, a young half-Ojibwe girl, listens to the tales from her grandfather Mooshum. We also hear from Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, who falls in love with Evelina’s aunt, and follow his ancestor and namesake in Pluto’s early existence. Histories intertwine, and the present repeats and contradicts the past.

The Plague of Doves resembles a short story collection, though its chapters are more interconnected and less complete than short stories. Erdrich lovingly details the mannerisms of individuals and wide-sky thunderstorms, but the use of multiple speakers can distance and confuse the reader. Still, moments of brilliance and humor emerge in situations dramatic and mundane. The delightful but flawed Mooshum is a poignant creation. Holy Track is a haunting but underdeveloped figure. One dazzling section is told by the mentally ill Marn Wolde. She is married to the fascinating Billy, a Messianic (or satanic) figure of terrible charisma.

Unfortunately, Marn Wolde’s wild commentary suffers from a lack of clarity, as does almost every segment. Dramatic events affect characters too little or too much, distracting from what is actually unfolding. Stereotypical characters like the heartless, self-righteous Father Cassidy also detract from the story’s power.

Starvation, murders, lynchings, kidnappings, and romances connect in fated coincidences. However, a lack of realism and narrative drive muddies beautiful imagery. Thus the supposed final punch is more hollow than gut wrenching.

My Name Is Red

The person who recommended Orhan Pamuk’s My Name Is Red confessed that it was one of the most difficult books she had read. It sounded gorgeous: told from different perspectives, including figures in ancient illuminations, a contemplative murder mystery unfolds during the Ottoman Empire’s sixteenth century. The book won the Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as a variety of other awards in multiple languages. The likes of The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, and The Economist Reviews cited: “A modern classic,” “a tour de force,” “Astonishing,” “magnificent,” “Shakespearean in its grandeur,” and “demonstrates the patience of … Proust and Mann, [while] his instinctive affinity lies with … Calvino and Borges.”

So instead of getting it from the library, I bought it. I love art and philosophy.

I stopped reading after 75 pages.

The story began from the fascinating viewpoint of a murdered corpse. Yet, my first doubts arose when he cadaver told about the afterlife. Instead of shedding light or adding suspense, the description of life after death merely made me think, “Well, I guess people can make up what they want when it comes to the afterlife.” After several chapters, my illusions that the book was made of interweaving threads fell away. I was reading one story, containing many different stories within it. These tales included lessons that, to me, didn’t seem particularly noteworthy. Even after gleaning the exact same lesson from five different stories.

Any depth of personality eluded me. No character held my interest. The women were objects of wit and desire, and the men were hardly more rounded. Rapists and torturers were described as enlightened and gentle. This may have been an attempt to depict the mindset of individuals at the time. Instead, the vaguely sketched characters are dull.

The translation was also off-putting. Characters speaking in formal settings dropped the f-bomb. Not the foul but the inappropriate language bothered me.

I’m sure that the characters and narration style were meant to imitate illuminations themselves as well as traditional storytelling. I’m also certain that there was a cultural difference that I was unable to overcome.

The person who recommended the book to me said that she had to put the book down for at least a year the first time she picked it up. I will also put it down for at least a year. At least.