Review
A beguiling collection of present-day fables that effortlessly transcend their folk origins. (Jonathan Pinnock )
Product Description
In contemporary America, an un-named college student sets out on an obsessive journey of discovery to collect and record the life-stories of total strangers. The interviews that follow have echoes of another, far more famous literary journey, undertaken long ago and in another world.
Drawing on the original, unexpurgated tales collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, six of their most famous works are re-imagined in the rich and endlessly varied landscapes of contemporary America.
From the glass towers of Manhattan to the remoteness of the Blue Ridge mountains; from the swamps of Louisiana to the jaded glamour of Hollywood, New World Fairy Tales reclaims the fairy tale for the modern adult audience. A haunting blend of romance and realism, these stripped-back narratives of human experience are the perfect read for anyone who has read their child a bedtime fairy story, and wondered who ever said these were stories meant for children.
Drawing on the original, unexpurgated tales collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, six of their most famous works are re-imagined in the rich and endlessly varied landscapes of contemporary America.
From the glass towers of Manhattan to the remoteness of the Blue Ridge mountains; from the swamps of Louisiana to the jaded glamour of Hollywood, New World Fairy Tales reclaims the fairy tale for the modern adult audience. A haunting blend of romance and realism, these stripped-back narratives of human experience are the perfect read for anyone who has read their child a bedtime fairy story, and wondered who ever said these were stories meant for children.
From the Author
The collection began with a late-night conversation with friends. We were talking about the dangers of cultural misappropriation (we’re not normally this high-falutin’, by the way. A lot of the time, we just talk about zombie plans and what we’re having for dinner), and its absurd consequences. The subject I managed to rant about for the longest was “fairy-tale”.
Why, I demanded, do we feel compelled to pigeon-hole these dark, bloody, sexy, visceral stories as not just suitable, but solely intended, for children? For in their original, un-bowdlerised form, these are stories about the very bones of life – birth and death, love and jealousy, sex and violence…
We soon discovered that, even though we were all in our twenties and thirties and beyond, we could all instantly identify our favourites. The reasons for choosing them were as varied as the stories themselves. Kim, always the starry-eyed romantic, was still deeply besotted with Cinderella. Kate – a poet with the soul of a serial killer – adored the darkness of Little Red Riding Hood. AJ’s top pick was Jack and the Beanstalk, although he strongly objected to the guy he described “that evil, thieving little bastard” getting away with it.
The more we talked, the more I could feel the project taking shape – that little itch at the back of your brain that insists you knuckle down and start writing. And finally, in a moment of wild-eyed, I-can-do-anything-I-am-invincible madness, I found myself committing to write everyone their own personalised short story, in a contemporary setting, but based on their own favourite fairy-tale.
The decision to place them in America came very early on. The simplest reason was that most of the original recipients were American. But the more important reason was that, when you compare America to the landscape where fairy-tales are set, they’re eerily similar. Like Fairyland, America contains all possible spaces and landscapes – mountains and deserts and plains and oceans, great cities and curtain-twitching suburbs and tiny, isolated rural hamlets. It contains many kingdoms, loosely federated, each with their own distinctive culture and autonomous power of legislation. Getting there requires a long journey, and when you arrive, it’s bloody difficult to get in. Its population is at once more devout and more violent than we are; when we visit, we tread softly, aware of how easily we might offend. Even if we’ve never been before, it looks strangely familiar – after all, we’ve been there so often in our dreams. Its citizens speak our language, but also…don’t.
So, with all that in mind, I wrote the “New World Fairy Tales”; one each for the original participants in that late-night conversation, and then some more for others who I wished had been there. I wanted to pay tribute to the wild diversity of the priceless cultural artefact we now call Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and re-invent some small part of it for an adult audience.
Thing is, I’ve never actually lived in America (although I have been to New York, once), and, therefore, I don’t speak the language. Learning to do so was a humbling experience; hours of reading and listening and talking and questioning and then reading and listening some more. The more I learned, the more I realised how very different our two tongues are – not just in the vocabulary, but in the grammar and the rhythm and the cadence. Looking back on the start of this project (“Hey, I know! I’ll write an entire short-story collection in a language I don’t actually speak, set in a country I’ve never lived in!”), I’m slightly appalled at my arrogance.
As I write this, I can hear that my own grammar and have been subtly changed by the experience. I guess rather than reckon. I figure rather than work things out. Occasionally I have to remind myself to pluralise Math. Writing to my Stateside friends, I can feel myself dropping back into their tongue rather than my own.
However, I do like to think of this as a two-way cultural exchange. In return for hours and hours of patient tuition, I’ve taught a few important Yorkshire phrases to my New World buddies. They have finally managed to make me understand why Trigonometry seems so bizarrely over-emphasised in the American curriculum. And somewhere in North Carolina, my very dear friend Kim, when surprised, will go to the foot of her stairs.
(Cassandra Parkin )
Why, I demanded, do we feel compelled to pigeon-hole these dark, bloody, sexy, visceral stories as not just suitable, but solely intended, for children? For in their original, un-bowdlerised form, these are stories about the very bones of life – birth and death, love and jealousy, sex and violence…
We soon discovered that, even though we were all in our twenties and thirties and beyond, we could all instantly identify our favourites. The reasons for choosing them were as varied as the stories themselves. Kim, always the starry-eyed romantic, was still deeply besotted with Cinderella. Kate – a poet with the soul of a serial killer – adored the darkness of Little Red Riding Hood. AJ’s top pick was Jack and the Beanstalk, although he strongly objected to the guy he described “that evil, thieving little bastard” getting away with it.
The more we talked, the more I could feel the project taking shape – that little itch at the back of your brain that insists you knuckle down and start writing. And finally, in a moment of wild-eyed, I-can-do-anything-I-am-invincible madness, I found myself committing to write everyone their own personalised short story, in a contemporary setting, but based on their own favourite fairy-tale.
The decision to place them in America came very early on. The simplest reason was that most of the original recipients were American. But the more important reason was that, when you compare America to the landscape where fairy-tales are set, they’re eerily similar. Like Fairyland, America contains all possible spaces and landscapes – mountains and deserts and plains and oceans, great cities and curtain-twitching suburbs and tiny, isolated rural hamlets. It contains many kingdoms, loosely federated, each with their own distinctive culture and autonomous power of legislation. Getting there requires a long journey, and when you arrive, it’s bloody difficult to get in. Its population is at once more devout and more violent than we are; when we visit, we tread softly, aware of how easily we might offend. Even if we’ve never been before, it looks strangely familiar – after all, we’ve been there so often in our dreams. Its citizens speak our language, but also…don’t.
So, with all that in mind, I wrote the “New World Fairy Tales”; one each for the original participants in that late-night conversation, and then some more for others who I wished had been there. I wanted to pay tribute to the wild diversity of the priceless cultural artefact we now call Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and re-invent some small part of it for an adult audience.
Thing is, I’ve never actually lived in America (although I have been to New York, once), and, therefore, I don’t speak the language. Learning to do so was a humbling experience; hours of reading and listening and talking and questioning and then reading and listening some more. The more I learned, the more I realised how very different our two tongues are – not just in the vocabulary, but in the grammar and the rhythm and the cadence. Looking back on the start of this project (“Hey, I know! I’ll write an entire short-story collection in a language I don’t actually speak, set in a country I’ve never lived in!”), I’m slightly appalled at my arrogance.
As I write this, I can hear that my own grammar and have been subtly changed by the experience. I guess rather than reckon. I figure rather than work things out. Occasionally I have to remind myself to pluralise Math. Writing to my Stateside friends, I can feel myself dropping back into their tongue rather than my own.
However, I do like to think of this as a two-way cultural exchange. In return for hours and hours of patient tuition, I’ve taught a few important Yorkshire phrases to my New World buddies. They have finally managed to make me understand why Trigonometry seems so bizarrely over-emphasised in the American curriculum. And somewhere in North Carolina, my very dear friend Kim, when surprised, will go to the foot of her stairs.
(Cassandra Parkin )
About the Author
Cassandra Parkin has a Master’s degree in English Literature from York University, and has been writing fiction all her life – mostly as Christmas and birthday presents for friends and family. She is married with two children, has so far resisted her clear destiny to become a mad old cat lady, and lives in a small but perfectly-formed village in East Yorkshire. “New World Fairy Tales” is her first published book.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Interview #4
— Ella Orlando
New Orleans, Louisiana
So, my story? Well, it’s your project, of course, but I don’t think there’s much to tell. Married twice, widowed once, two daughters by marriage. I’ve never liked the word ‘stepchild’; it’s a hard, ugly word. And no, I’ve never called myself a stepmother either. Yes, that’s the photo — rather worn and crumpled. He carried it all round town, you see, trying to find me, while I ran home to hide. The wildness of youth, although at the time I thought I was so old … My dear, I do apologise. When we’re young, we run; when we’re old, we ramble. Well, let’s start at the beginning — with the first time I got married.
Abbeville, 1964. Harry and I, drinking coffee in a diner, watching the rain. A long-haired couple, barefoot, even though it was pouring, stood at the bus stop kissing. When I looked at Harry, he was watching me watching them.
‘I’ve never kissed you like that,’ he said.
‘You have,’ I reminded him.
‘But not in public.’
‘So?’
He sighed.
‘Oh, Ella, do I seem too old to you?’
‘No,’ I said and took his hand. The rain kissed the window. He was thirty-six years older than me.
‘I’m plenty old enough to be your father.’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘I’ve been married twice before.’
‘I knew that when we met.’
‘And I’ve got the girls . . .’
His daughters, Cindy and Beth. He hadn’t married
their mother.
‘Why would that matter?’
‘It’s not much to offer, is it?’ he tried to laugh. ‘But for what it’s worth, Ella — for what I’m worth — I’m all yours.’
‘I know,’ I said. Hot nights and stolen afternoons; motels and friend’s houses and the back seat of his car. It meant something different back then. I was risking a lot — afraid he’d never call again, afraid I’d get caught — but I wanted to make him happy.
‘I mean,’ he said, ‘I’ll marry you, if you want to.’ He kissed my hand. ‘Would you like to? What do you think?’
I hadn’t expected that. Sex simply wasn’t something you did with a friend of your father, married twice before, whose last dalliance walked out on him to go and find herself in California. Not if you wanted a ring on your finger afterwards, anyway.
‘Yes,’ I said.
Oh, I know I’ve made him sound vile, but truly, he wasn’t. He was loving, vulnerable, funny and clever, wise and charming and strong. I really don’t think he knew, that day he proposed, that he was ill.
We had eight months before it got really bad — the pain breaking through the morphine, sheets soaked through with sweat. Even after the company folded — we’d had to leave the area after the wedding, it never ran right without him there — we were happy.
I nursed him myself, of course I did.
‘You’re sure you can do this?’ he’d ask, nights when we’d sat up waiting for the dawn, and the nurse and the next morphine shot. I held his hand.
‘Yes,’ I said.
Then he was gone and I had a failed business, a pile of bills, and two girls.
Our girls.
My girls, now. Pale faces and solemn eyes.
I vowed in the churchyard I’d make it up to them. I’d do everything for them, make them the centre of my world.
‘If you need to come home . . .’ My mother, caught between love and satisfaction at being proved right. She drew hard on her cigarette. ‘But not his children. They can go to his sister’s.’
‘I’m staying with them,’ I said.
‘You’re mad,’ she told me. ‘You don’t have to.’
Their faces, so expectant and trusting. My heart turned over.
‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘Don’t make me choose, Mom, because I will choose them. I mean it.’
‘You’re serious?’ She blew out smoke, looked at me in disbelief. ‘You actually think you can raise those girls by yourself?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
— Ella Orlando
New Orleans, Louisiana
So, my story? Well, it’s your project, of course, but I don’t think there’s much to tell. Married twice, widowed once, two daughters by marriage. I’ve never liked the word ‘stepchild’; it’s a hard, ugly word. And no, I’ve never called myself a stepmother either. Yes, that’s the photo — rather worn and crumpled. He carried it all round town, you see, trying to find me, while I ran home to hide. The wildness of youth, although at the time I thought I was so old … My dear, I do apologise. When we’re young, we run; when we’re old, we ramble. Well, let’s start at the beginning — with the first time I got married.
Abbeville, 1964. Harry and I, drinking coffee in a diner, watching the rain. A long-haired couple, barefoot, even though it was pouring, stood at the bus stop kissing. When I looked at Harry, he was watching me watching them.
‘I’ve never kissed you like that,’ he said.
‘You have,’ I reminded him.
‘But not in public.’
‘So?’
He sighed.
‘Oh, Ella, do I seem too old to you?’
‘No,’ I said and took his hand. The rain kissed the window. He was thirty-six years older than me.
‘I’m plenty old enough to be your father.’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘I’ve been married twice before.’
‘I knew that when we met.’
‘And I’ve got the girls . . .’
His daughters, Cindy and Beth. He hadn’t married
their mother.
‘Why would that matter?’
‘It’s not much to offer, is it?’ he tried to laugh. ‘But for what it’s worth, Ella — for what I’m worth — I’m all yours.’
‘I know,’ I said. Hot nights and stolen afternoons; motels and friend’s houses and the back seat of his car. It meant something different back then. I was risking a lot — afraid he’d never call again, afraid I’d get caught — but I wanted to make him happy.
‘I mean,’ he said, ‘I’ll marry you, if you want to.’ He kissed my hand. ‘Would you like to? What do you think?’
I hadn’t expected that. Sex simply wasn’t something you did with a friend of your father, married twice before, whose last dalliance walked out on him to go and find herself in California. Not if you wanted a ring on your finger afterwards, anyway.
‘Yes,’ I said.
Oh, I know I’ve made him sound vile, but truly, he wasn’t. He was loving, vulnerable, funny and clever, wise and charming and strong. I really don’t think he knew, that day he proposed, that he was ill.
We had eight months before it got really bad — the pain breaking through the morphine, sheets soaked through with sweat. Even after the company folded — we’d had to leave the area after the wedding, it never ran right without him there — we were happy.
I nursed him myself, of course I did.
‘You’re sure you can do this?’ he’d ask, nights when we’d sat up waiting for the dawn, and the nurse and the next morphine shot. I held his hand.
‘Yes,’ I said.
Then he was gone and I had a failed business, a pile of bills, and two girls.
Our girls.
My girls, now. Pale faces and solemn eyes.
I vowed in the churchyard I’d make it up to them. I’d do everything for them, make them the centre of my world.
‘If you need to come home . . .’ My mother, caught between love and satisfaction at being proved right. She drew hard on her cigarette. ‘But not his children. They can go to his sister’s.’
‘I’m staying with them,’ I said.
‘You’re mad,’ she told me. ‘You don’t have to.’
Their faces, so expectant and trusting. My heart turned over.
‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘Don’t make me choose, Mom, because I will choose them. I mean it.’
‘You’re serious?’ She blew out smoke, looked at me in disbelief. ‘You actually think you can raise those girls by yourself?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
