Dreadful young ladies and other stories

Title:

Author:

Barnhill, Kelly Regan, author.

Added Author:

Barnhill, Kelly Regan. Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch.

Personal Author:

Barnhill, Kelly Regan, author.

ISBN:

9781616207977

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

288 pages : illustration ; 22 cm

Contents:

Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch -- Open the door and the light pours through -- dead boy's last poem -- Dreadful young ladies -- taxidermist's other wife -- Elegy to Gabrielle, patron saint of healers, whores, and righteous thieves -- Notes on the untimely death of Ronia Drake -- insect and the astronomer: a love story -- unlicensed magician.

Abstract:

A short story collection featuring elements of magic realism while touching on the themes of love, knowledge, grief, hope, and jealousy. Teeming with uncanny characters whose lives unfold in worlds at once strikingly human and eerily original, these stories demonstrate the strength and power -- known and unknown -- of the imagination.

Subject Term:

Grief -- Fiction.

Magic -- Fiction.

Mate selection -- Fiction.

Unrequited love -- Fiction.

Genre:

Fantasy fiction.

Short stories.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Belmont	Book	FICTION BARNHIL	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Westover Hills	Book	FICTION BARNHIL	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

A stunning new collection of fantasy short stories from the World Fantasy Award- and Newbery Medal-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon.

When Mrs. Sorensen's husband dies, she rekindles a long-dormant love with an unsuitable mate in "Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch." In "Open the Door and the Light Pours Through," a young man wrestles with grief and his sexuality in an exchange of letters with his faraway beloved. "Dreadful Young Ladies" demonstrates the strength and power--known and unknown--of the imagination. In "Notes on the Untimely Death of Ronia Drake," a witch is haunted by the deadly repercussions of a spell. "The Insect and the Astronomer" upends expectations about good and bad, knowledge and ignorance, love and longing. The World Fantasy Award-winning novella "The Unlicensed Magician" introduces the secret magical life of an invisible girl once left for dead--with thematic echoes of Barnhill's Newbery Medal-winning novel, The Girl Who Drank the Moon .

With bold, reality-bending invention underscored by richly illuminated universal themes of love, death, jealousy, and hope, the stories in Dreadful Young Ladies show why its author has been hailed as "a fantasist on the order of Neil Gaiman" ( Minneapolis Star Tribune ). This collection cements Barnhill's place as one of the wittiest, most vital and compelling voices in contemporary literature.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

Lyrical stories about love, sex, and death from Barnhill (The Girl Who Drank the Moon, 2016, etc.).A Midwestern widow who loves animals rejects her mortal suitors to run off with a Sasquatch. A refugee from the London Blitz, exchanging letters with her husband, slowly comes to understand that she is, in fact, already dead. A professor who happens to be an insect and the last of his kind finds himself drawn to an astronomer who has never been alive. With lush imagery reminiscent of Ray Bradbury or Angela Carter, Barnhill explores passionate relationships frustrated by greed, malice, andultimatelydeath. In her world, witches are as likely to be holy women who heal the sick and make common ground with prostitutes ("Elegy to GabriellePatron Saint of Healers, Whores, and Righteous Thieves") as they are to be evil stepmothers who steal husbands ("Notes on the Untimely Death of Ronia Drake"). She has an affinity for the symbolic vocabulary of contemporary literary fantasyautomata, insects, taxidermywhich can feel overused, though she deploys it skillfully enough. Her language, poetic and evocative at its best, can sometimes cloy, but the fire and bitterness of her themes generally cut the sweetness.Whether Barnhill's settings are contemporary, historical, or dystopian, she mixes the feeling of fairy tales with the psychological preoccupations of literary fiction; her longer stories tend to be her better ones, allowing her room to develop her characters from symbols to people. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.