Magic for unlucky girls : stories

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Magic for Unlucky Girls: Stories is a collection of short stories that weave Western oral and literary folklore influences around women-centered narratives. The characters react in different ways to the expectations and prejudices heaped upon them in their respective worlds--some collapse under the weight of those expectations, some embrace them in perverse or tragic ways, and some rebel outright. These stories focus on feminine violence reworked through old fairy tale and folklore themes. In "Food My Father Feeds Me, Love My Husband Shows Me", a passionately carnivorous girl whose father is a butcher is married off to a vegetarian. In "Suburban Alchemy", an alchemist attempts to resurrect his dead wife while struggling with his inability to understand the needs of his preteen daughter and her obsession with a famous pop star. "Put Back Together Again” features a depressed pharmacist who struggles to reconcile the medical horrors she witnesses with the appearance of a super-man who cannot be injured, all while the city she lives in is ravaged by earthquakes. "Let Down Your Long Hair and Then Yourself" tells of what happens to Rapunzel after she is married to her murderous child-groom whose only love is physical perfection, and the lengths she must go to save her daughter who is born with a crooked nose. In "Eden", a young boy befriends the town scapegoat who is whispered to have a too familiar relationship with his horses, as well as the small town ex-beauty queen, the most current in a line of ex-queens who carry shotguns out in the night.