Springy Story Review: "Gestella" by Susan Palwick

Why it springs to mind: A hauntingly beautiful horror story about what happens when a woman relinquishes her power. A unique werewolf story with commentary on aging.

Where read: First in Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology (2015, PM Press edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer) and then in Palwick's collection The Fate of Mice (2007, Tachyon Publications) — both outstanding! These presses won't steer you wrong.

Summary: A young woman werewolf allows herself to be dominated by a lover who takes control of her fate.

Memorable: The powerful ending! The word: sportfuck. A new take on lycanthropy. Written in second person — you.

Quote:

"You know that your growing wisdom is the benefit of aging, the compensation for your wrinkles and your fading—although fading slowly as yet—beauty. You also know that Jonathan didn't marry you for wisdom."

Personal connection: Some of my favorite stories seem to be the ones that address the issues of women aging: Margaret Atwood's "Torching the Dusties" and Mary Robinette Kowal's "The Lady Astronaut of Mars". This also fits with one of my favorite themes for thought — the relationship between the treatment of human animals and animals. What we allow to be done to one, can be done to the other.

About the author: Per Sisters of the Revolution Susan Palwick's first published story was "The Woman Who Saved the World," in Issac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in 1985. Per Goodreads: her first novel, Flying in Place (1992), won the Crawford Award for Best First Fantasy Novel, presented annually by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts. "Gestella," was first published in the anthology Starlight 3 in 2001. Palwick is an English professor at the University of Nevada and a volunteer chaplain in a hospital emergency room. She blogs at: http://improbableoptimisms.blogspot.com/

What to read next: I'm going next to Palwick's novel Shelter (2007, Tor), a look at a future in which compassion is a crime.

Comments

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