pagesofjulia

I have followed Sarah Beth Durst through cozy fantasies (The Spellshop and its sequels), darker ones (The Queen of Blood and her fellows), and now here, to a deeply imaginative and deliciously weird look at the choices we make and those we may try to make for others.

Different chapters focus on three different women in three timelines, but it is Elisa who steps forward as protagonist. She has never lived anywhere longer than ten months, and lives by an elaborate set of rules and strategies, taught by her mother, to leave no trace and take no souvenirs. A family curse, passed from mother to daughter, decrees that if she ever “puts down roots,” that concept will be come literal. Elisa will turn into a tree, as her mother did before her. In alternate chapters, we see Lori, also on the run, and Rose, who always wanted to leave her hometown but never got a chance. Is a home something to be desired, sought after, built, and cherished? Or is a home a cage? We meet many weird, twisting, fascinating characters: a handsome bookstore owner, a moon-eyed lover in Paris, a possibly suicidal woman dressed entirely in pink, a gloomy pair of young women, a mystical trio of blue-haired old ones, and a bird-obsessed recluse, among others. I am over the moon that Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman gets a cameo here, because that’s the book this one reminds me of – it may even inspire a reread.

The tension between staying and going, and what each of us fears and yearns for among these options, occupies much of the book. Also the gifts and the chains that come out of a mother’s love for her daughter, and the question of what power we have and should have to choose for others. There is romance, and there is some ‘light’ fantasy, but mostly, there is an examination of these big questions, absolutely within the gendered constructs of a society that historically encouraged women to care for husband, children, and home, and what it does and does not encourage now. But it’s not a pointed study, because it’s couched within mysteries, creepy bird collectors, the fine art of dumpster diving, the handsome bookstore owner, etc. I had the best time! And my appreciation of Durst’s work only grows. Onward.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: audio, family, gender, romance, speculative fiction |