Kate Bernheimer (editor) - My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales

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Table of Contents

PENGUIN BOOKS

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me

KATE BERNHEIMER is the founder and editor of the literary journal Fairy Tale Review ; the author of the story collection Horse, Flower, Bird as well as a childrens book and the novels The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold and The Complete Tales of Merry Gold ; and the editor of two anthologies, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales and Brothers and Beasts: An Anthology of Men on Fairy Tales . She has published stories in such journals as Tin House , Western Humanities Review , and The Massachusetts Review and has spoken on fairy tales in lecture series sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art, Ball State University Museum of Art, and the 92nd Street Y.

CARMEN GIMNEZ SMITH is the author of the poetry collection Odalisque in Pieces and the memoir Bring Down the Little Birds . She is also the publisher of Noemi Press and the editor in chief of the journal Puerto del Sol .

GREGORY MAGUIRE is the bestselling author of Wicked , the basis for the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in Penguin Books 2010

Selection and introduction copyright Kate Bernheimer, 2010

Foreword copyright Gregory Maguire, 2010

All rights reserved

Page 543 constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

PUBLISHERS NOTE

These selections are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

eISBN : 978-1-101-46438-0

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The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

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For Angela Carter

Ours is a highly individualized culture, with a great faith in the work of art as a unique one-off, and the artist as an original, a godlike and inspired creator of unique one-offs. But fairy tales are not like that, nor are their makers. Who first invented meatballs? In what country? Is there a definitive recipe for potato soup? Think in terms of the domestic arts. This is how I make potato soup.

ANGELA CARTER

INTRODUCTION

DESPITE ITS HEFT, THIS COLLECTION IS A TINY HALL OF MIRRORS IN the worlds giant house of fairy tales. Fairy tales comprise thousands of stories written by thousands of writers over hundreds of years. A volume published in the mid-twentieth century that purported to catalog every type of folktale in existence had more than twenty-five hundred entries; since then, countless new stories have joyously entered the world via new translations, folkloric research, and artists working in a multitude of forms.

Readers love fairy tales. Even the most virulent critics of fairy tales cant look away. With their false brides, severed limbs, and talking donkeys, they are hypnotic. All great novels are great fairy tales, wrote Nabokov. I would argue that all great narratives are great fairy tales... whatever their shape (novel, novella, short story, poem).

About fifteen years ago, when I began to acquaint myself with the scholarship surrounding fairy tales in order to think about my own body of work within the tradition, I became aware of a fairy-tale resurgence. Soon after that I edited my first collection, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall essays by women writers about the influence of fairy tales on their work. I also embarked on a trilogy of novels about the influence of fairy-tale books on three sisters. And now I am thrilled to see an even more widespread infatuation with wonder storiesin popular book series like J. K. Rowlings Harry Potter , Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials , and Gregory Maguires Oz books; in stand-alone novels such as Donna Tartts The Little Friend and A. S. Byatts The Childrens Book ; on television, whether obviously, as in any number of vampire shows, or quietly, as in the shape and surreal motifs of Six Feet Under ; and in film, where Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Alice in Wonderland are but two examples. Magic is in the air.

I was weaned on fairy tales. My grandfather, who may or may not have worked for Disney (nobody is certain) and who may or may not have worked with a Bostonian piano thief (we think he did), screened fairy-tale films in his basement for me and my siblings when we were young. The flying beds, cackling witches, and warbling birds shaped my being. In combination with terrifying Holocaust footage screened at my templeand stories of burning bushes, singing spring turtles, and parting seasthe consolation of magical stories was directly imprinted on me. I was shy, happiest inside books; their open world beckoned and took me in.

Over the past seven years, as founder and editor of Fairy Tale Review, I have seen the passionate interest fairy tales hold for the thousands of writers who submit to every issue. I founded the journal out of a sense that literary works based on fairy tales, like the lonely heroes of fairy tales themselves, lacked homes. I was immediately flooded with very good manuscripts. Many hopeful correspondents are well-known authors whose magical works have been turned down by older literary publications; others are true believers and have devoted their lives to folklore in unusual wayscreating fairy-tale newspapers, selling homemade fairy-tale wares, producing freely distributed fairy-tale comics; still others are grandfathers, mothers, teachers, biologists, or students who as new writers feel comfortable trying on the fairy-tale form. I am touched by every submission; each shines with love for fairy tales.

When I lecture on fairy tales, whether at museums or grade schools, I am always moved by the audiences deep pleasure in learning about fairy-tale techniques. Fairy tales defy the status quo: a reader will easily recognize a version of Little Red Riding Hood that contains no cape, no woods, and no wolf. See Matthew Brights amazing film Freeway in which a young Reese Witherspoon plays an abused kid who runs away from homeand youll understand; its a direct homage to The Story of Grandmother, interpreted in this collection by the inimitable Kellie Wells. Fairy tales have a fairy-tale likeness.

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