My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me

Genres: Fantasy Anthologies & Collections; Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

The fairy tale lives again in this book of forty new stories by some of the biggest names in contemporary fiction.

Neil Gaiman, “Orange”
 
Aimee Bender, “The Color Master”
 
Joyce Carol Oates, “Blue-bearded Lover”
 
Michael Cunningham, “The Wild Swans”
 
These and more than thirty other stories by Francine Prose, Kelly Link, Jim Shepard, Lydia Millet, and many other extraordinary writers make up this thrilling celebration of fairy tales—the ultimate literary costume party.
 
Spinning houses and talking birds. Whispered secrets and borrowed hope. Here are new stories sewn from old skins, gathered by visionary editor Kate Bernheimer and inspired by everything from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” and “The Little Match Girl” to Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard” and “Cinderella” to the Brothers Grimm’s “Hansel and Gretel” and “Rumpelstiltskin” to fairy tales by Goethe and Calvino and from China, Japan, Vietnam, Russia, Norway, and Mexico.
 
Fairy tales are our oldest literary tradition, and yet they chart the imaginative frontiers of the twenty-first century as powerfully as they evoke our earliest encounters with literature. This exhilarating collection restores their place in the literary canon.

Release date: September 28, 2010

Publisher: Penguin Books

Print pages: 576

Sample

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me

Contents
 
Introduction by Kate Bernheimer
Foreword by Gregory Maguire

Russia
Joy Williams, “Baba Iaga and the Pelican Child” (source tale: “Baba Yaga”)
Jonathon Keats, “Ardour” (source tale: “Baba Yaga”)
Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, “I’m Here” (source tale: “Ivan Tsarevich”)

Germany
Alissa Nutting, “The Brother and the Bird” (source tale: “The Juniper Tree,” Brothers Grimm)
Francine Prose, “Hansel and Gretel” (source tale: “Hansel & Gretel,” Brothers Grimm)
Kevin Brockmeier, “A Day in the Life of Half of Rumpelstiltskin” (source tale: “Rumpelstiltskin,” Brothers Grimm)
Neil LaBute, “With Hair of Hand-Spun Gold” (source tale: “Rumpelstiltskin,” Brothers Grimm) 
Shelley Jackson, “The Swan Brothers” (source tale: “The Six Swans,” Brothers Grimm) 
Joyelle McSweeney, “The Warm Mouth” (source tale: “The Bremen Town Musicians,” Brothers Grimm)
Lydia Millet, “Snow White, Rose Red” (source tale: “Snow-White and Rose-Red,” Brothers Grimm)
Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, “The Erlking” (source tale: “The Erlking,” Johann Goethe)

Norway
Brian Evenson, “Dapplegrim” (source tale: “Dapplegrim,” Peter Christen Asbjornien and Jorgen Moe) 

Denmark
Michael Cunningham, “The Wild Swans” (source tale: “The Wild Swans,” Hans Christian Andersen) 
Karen Joy Fowler, “Halfway People” (source tale: “The Wild Swans,” Hans Christian Andersen) 
Rikki Ducornet, “Green Air” (source tale: “The Little Match Girl,” Hans Christian Andersen) 
Timothy Schaffert, “The Mermaid in the Tree” (source tale: “The Little Mermaid,” Hans Christian Andersen)
Katherine Vaz, “What the Conch Shell Sings When the Body Is Gone” (source tale: “The Little Mermaid,” Hans Christian Andersen)
Karen Brennan, “The Snow Queen” (source tale: “The Snow Queen,” Hans Christian Andersen)
Lucy Corin, “Eyes of Dogs” (source tale: “The Tinder Box,” Hans Christian Andersen)
Ilya Kaminsky, “Little Pot” (source tale: “The Teapot,” Hans Christian Andersen)

England
Michael Martone, “A Bucket of Warm Spit” (source tale: “Jack and the Beanstalk,” Joseph Jacobs) 
Kelly Link, “Catskin” (source tale: “Catskin,” Joseph Jacobs)

Ireland
Chris Adrian, “Teague O'Kane and the Corpse” (source tale: “Teague O’Kane and The Corpse,” William Butler Yeats)

Italy
Jim Shepard, “Pleasure Boating in Lituya Bay” (source tale: “Jump Into My Sack,” Italo Calvino)
Kathryn Davis, “Body-without-Soul” (source tale: “Body-without-Soul,” Italo Calvino)
Kellie Wells, “The Girl, the Wolf, the Crone” (source tale: “The Story of Grandmother”)
Sabrina Orah Mark, “My Brother Gary Made a Movie and This Is What Happened” (source tale: “The Young Slave,” Giambattista Basile) 

France
Aimee Bender, “The Color Master” (source tale: “Donkeyskin,” Charles Perrault) 
Marjorie Sandor, “The White Cat” (source tale: “The White Cat,” Madame d’Aulnoy)
Joyce Carol Oates, “Blue-bearded Lover” (source tale: “Bluebeard,” Charles Perrault)
John Updike, “Bluebeard in Ireland” (source tale: “Bluebeard,” Charles Perrault)
Rabih Alameddine, “A Kiss to Wake the Sleeper” (source tale: “Sleeping Beauty,” Charles Perrault) 
Stacey Richter, “A Case Study of Emergency Room Procedure and Risk Management by Hospital Staff Members in the Urban Facility” (source tale: “Cinderella,” Charles Perrault) 

Greece
Neil Gaiman, “Orange” (source tale: The Odyssey, Homer)
Francesca Lia Block, “Psyche's Dark Night” (source tale: “Cupid and Psyche”)

Vietnam
Lily Hoang, “The Story of the Mosquito” (source tale: “The Story of the Mosquito")

Japan
Naoko Awa, “First Day of Snow” (source tale: “A Kamikakushi Tale”)
Hiromi Itō, “I Am Anjuhimeko” (source tale: “Sanshō the Steward”)

Mexico
Michael Mejia, “Coyote Takes Us Home” (source tale: “Tales from Jalisco,” Mexico)

United States
Kim Addonizio, “Ever After” (source tale: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Walt Disney)
Kate Bernheimer, “Whitework” (source tale: “The Oval Portrait,” Edgar Allan Poe)