A gorgeously illustrated collection of twelve original stories by the New York Times bestselling author of The Hazel Wood and The Night Country. Journey into the Hinterland, a brutal and beautiful world where a young woman spends a night with Death, brides are wed to a mysterious house in the trees, and an enchantress is killed twice—and still lives. Perfect for new readers and dedicated fans alike, Tales from the Hinterland will include gorgeous illustrations by Jim Tierney, foil stamping, two-color interior printing, and two-color printed endpapers. Here she has written two variants of Beauty and the Beast, one of which involves mysterious car trouble (Thriller vibes??), a retelling of Bluebeard, and unspecified woodlands goblins, amongst others. Each of the stories can be considered a sophisticated fairytale and is written in the style of 18th/19th Century fairytales. Are these stories written in awe of those fairytales or satirically? Critics disagreed on that point, so you’ll have to make up your own mind. While most of the stories in this collection are unique, a few of them, most notably “The Cat” and “The Map,” are based in a universe he created for his New Sun novels.
Combining, confronting, and deeply analyzing postcolonial identity, this work brings new meaning to the term “full-blooded.”
Described as “hilarious” and “absurd,” (two excellent descriptors, in my opinion), these stories depict Mr. Darcy as the captain of the football team and insert bake sales in place of ballroom dances, all without losing the feeling, if not style, of an Austen novel. Thanks for being so polite when sharing your differing opinion on literature! What a great reader you are. And yes, indeed it was, but it has had so many incarnations since that a person could read this work in short story form, amended short story form, published screenplay form, and yes, as a stand-alone short novel. First published as a piece of short fiction in The New Yorker in 1997, it went on to win the National Magazine Award for Fiction, after which it was published in Proulx’s collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories, which was then shortlisted for the 2000 Pulitzer. See? It’s impressive! The epic retelling of this epic uses “funky, foul-mounted” lyrical language to offer both a complement and a counterpoint to the oft-studied Middle English Epic.
