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Magic for Beginners: Stories Paperback – July 1, 2014
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“[These] exquisite stories mix the aggravations and epiphanies of everyday life with the stuff that legends, dreams and nightmares are made of.”—Laura Miller, Salon, “Best Books of the Decade”
LOCUS AWARD WINNER • A TIME AND SEATTLE TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
One of the most critically acclaimed collections of our time, Magic for Beginners is an exquisite, dreamlike dispatch from a virtuoso storyteller who can do seemingly anything. Kelly Link reconstructs modern life through an intoxicating prism, conjuring up unforgettable worlds with humor and humanity.These stories are at once ingenious and deeply moving. They leave the reader astonished and exhilarated.
Includes an exclusive conversation between Kelly Link and Joe Hill
- Print length352 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRandom House Trade Paperbacks
- Publication dateJuly 1, 2014
- Dimensions5.2 x 0.75 x 7.9 inches
- ISBN-100812986512
- ISBN-13978-0812986518
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“[Kelly] Link’s stories . . . play in a place few writers go, a netherworld between literature and fantasy, Alice Munro and J. K. Rowling, and Link finds truths there that most authors wouldn’t dare touch.”—Lev Grossman, Time
“She is a sorcerer. She is our greatest living fabulist.”—Carmen Maria Machado
“Funny, scary, surprising and powerfully moving within the span of a single story or even a single sentence.”—Karen Russell, The Miami Herald
“This is what certain readers live for: fiction that makes the world instead of merely mimicking it.”—Audrey Niffenegger
“[These] exquisite stories mix the aggravations and epiphanies of everyday life with the stuff that legends, dreams and nightmares are made of.”—Laura Miller, Salon, Best Books of the Decade
“A major talent . . . Like George Saunders, [Link] can’t dismiss the hidden things that tap on our windows at night.”—The Boston Globe
“The most darkly playful voice in American fiction.”—Michael Chabon
“I think she is the most impressive writer of her generation.”—Peter Straub
“Link’s world is one to savor. [Grade:] A”—Entertainment Weekly
“Intricate, wildly imaginative and totally wonderful . . . will fill you with awe and joy.”—NPR
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Faery Handbag
I used to go to thrift stores with my friends. We’d take the train into Boston, and go to The Garment District, which is this huge vintage clothing warehouse. Everything is arranged by color, and somehow that makes all of the clothes beautiful. It’s kind of like if you went through the wardrobe in the Narnia books, only instead of finding Aslan and the White Witch and horrible Eustace, you found this magic clothing world—instead of talking animals, there were feather boas and wedding dresses and bowling shoes, and paisley shirts and Doc Martens and everything hung up on racks so that first you have black dresses, all together, like the world’s largest indoor funeral, and then blue dresses—all the blues you can imagine—and then red dresses and so on. Pink reds and orangey reds and purple reds and exit-light reds and candy reds. Sometimes I would close my eyes and Natasha and Natalie and Jake would drag me over to a rack, and rub a dress against my hand. “Guess what color this is.”
We had this theory that you could learn how to tell, just by feeling, what color something was. For example, if you’re sitting on a lawn, you can tell what color green the grass is, with your eyes closed, depending on how silky-rubbery it feels. With clothing, stretchy velvet stuff always feels red when your eyes are closed, even if it’s not red. Natasha was always best at guessing colors, but Natasha is also best at cheating at games and not getting caught.
One time we were looking through kids’ T-shirts and we found a Muppets T-shirt that had belonged to Natalie in third grade. We knew it belonged to her, because it still had her name inside, where her mother had written it in permanent marker when Natalie went to summer camp. Jake bought it back for her, because he was the only one who had money that weekend. He was the only one who had a job.
Maybe you’re wondering what a guy like Jake is doing in The Garment District with a bunch of girls. The thing about Jake is that he always has a good time, no matter what he’s doing. He likes everything, and he likes everyone, but he likes me best of all. Wherever he is now, I bet he’s having a great time and wondering when I’m going to show up. I’m always running late. But he knows that.
We had this theory that things have life cycles, the way that people do. The life cycle of wedding dresses and feather boas and T-shirts and shoes and handbags involves The Garment District. If clothes are good, or even if they’re bad in an interesting way, The Garment District is where they go when they die. You can tell that they’re dead, because of the way that they smell. When you buy them, and wash them, and start wearing them again, and they start to smell like you, that’s when they reincarnate. But the point is, if you’re looking for a particular thing, you just have to keep looking for it. You have to look hard.
Down in the basement at The Garment District they sell clothing and beat-up suitcases and teacups by the pound. You can get eight pounds’ worth of prom dresses—a slinky black dress, a poufy lavender dress, a swirly pink dress, a silvery, starry lamé dress so fine you could pass it through a key ring—for eight dollars. I go there every week, hunting for Grandmother Zofia’s faery handbag.
The faery handbag: It’s huge and black and kind of hairy. Even when your eyes are closed, it feels black. As black as black ever gets, like if you touch it, your hand might get stuck in it, like tar or black quicksand or when you stretch out your hand at night, to turn on a light, but all you feel is darkness.
Fairies live inside it. I know what that sounds like, but it’s true.
Grandmother Zofia said it was a family heirloom. She said that it was over two hundred years old. She said that when she died, I had to look after it. Be its guardian. She said that it would be my responsibility.
I said that it didn’t look that old, and that they didn’t have handbags two hundred years ago, but that just made her cross. She said, “So then tell me, Genevieve, darling, where do you think old ladies used to put their reading glasses and their heart medicine and their knitting needles?”
I know that no one is going to believe any of this. That’s okay. If I thought you would, then I couldn’t tell you. Promise me that you won’t believe a word. That’s what Zofia used to say to me when she told me stories. At the funeral, my mother said, half-laughing and half-crying, that her mother was the world’s best liar. I think she thought maybe Zofia wasn’t really dead. But I went up to Zofia’s coffin, and I looked her right in the eyes. They were closed. The funeral parlor had made her up with blue eyeshadow, and blue eyeliner. She looked like she was going to be a news anchor on Fox television, instead of dead. It was creepy and it made me even sadder than I already was. But I didn’t let that distract me.
“Okay, Zofia,” I whispered. “I know you’re dead, but this is important. You know exactly how important this is. Where’s the handbag? What did you do with it? How do I find it? What am I supposed to do now?”
Of course, she didn’t say a word. She just lay there, this little smile on her face, as if she thought the whole thing—death, blue eyeshadow, Jake, the handbag, faeries, Scrabble, Baldeziwurlekistan, all of it—was a joke. She always did have a weird sense of humor. That’s why she and Jake got along so well.
I grew up in a house next door to the house where my mother lived when she was a little girl. Her mother, Zofia Swink, my grandmother, babysat me while my mother and father were at work.
Zofia never looked like a grandmother. She had long black hair, which she plaited up in spiky towers. She had large blue eyes. She was taller than my father. She looked like a spy or ballerina or a lady pirate or a rock star. She acted like one too. For example, she never drove anywhere. She rode a bike. It drove my mother crazy. “Why can’t you act your age?” she’d say, and Zofia would just laugh.
Zofia and I played Scrabble all the time. Zofia always won, even though her English wasn’t all that great, because we’d decided that she was allowed to use Baldeziwurleki vocabulary. Baldeziwurlekistan is where Zofia was born, over two hundred years ago. That’s what Zofia said. (My grandmother claimed to be over two hundred years old. Or maybe even older. Sometimes she claimed that she’d even met Genghis Khan. He was much shorter than her. I probably don’t have time to tell that story.) Baldeziwurlekistan is also an incredibly valuable word in Scrabble points, even though it doesn’t exactly fit on the board. Zofia put it down the first time we played. I was feeling pretty good because I’d gotten forty-one points for zippery on my turn.
Zofia kept rearranging her letters on her tray. Then she looked over at me, as if daring me to stop her, and put down eziwurlekistan, after bald. She used delicious, zippery, wishes, kismet, and needle, and made to into toe. Baldeziwurlekistan went all the way across the board and then trailed off down the righthand side.
I started laughing.
“I used up all my letters,” Zofia said. She licked her pencil and started adding up points.
“That’s not a word,” I said. “Baldeziwurlekistan is not a word. Besides, you can’t do that. You can’t put an eighteen-letter word on a board that’s fifteen squares across.”
“Why not? It’s a country,” Zofia said. “It’s where I was born, little darling.”
“Challenge,” I said. I went and got the dictionary and looked it up. “There’s no such place.”
“Of course there isn’t nowadays,” Zofia said. “It wasn’t a very big place, even when it was a place. But you’ve heard of Samarkand, and Uzbekistan and the Silk Road and Genghis Khan. Haven’t I told you about meeting Genghis Khan?”
I looked up Samarkand. “Okay,” I said. “Samarkand is a real place. A real word. But Baldeziwurlekistan isn’t.”
“They call it something else now,” Zofia said. “But I think it’s important to remember where we come from. I think it’s only fair that I get to use Baldeziwurleki words. Your English is so much better than me. Promise me something, mouthful of dumpling, a small, small thing. You’ll remember its real name. Baldeziwurlekistan. Now when I add it up, I get three hundred and sixty-eight points. Could that be right?”
If you called the faery handbag by its right name, it would be something like orzipanikanikcz, which means the “bag of skin where the world lives,” only Zofia never spelled that word the same way twice. She said you had to spell it a little differently each time. You never wanted to spell it exactly the right way, because that would be dangerous.
I called it the faery handbag because I put faery down on the Scrabble board once. Zofia said that you spelled it with an i, not an e. She looked it up in the dictionary, and lost a turn.
Zofia said that in Baldeziwurlekistan they used a board and tiles for divination, prognostication, and sometimes even just for fun. She said it was a little like playing Scrabble. That’s probably why she turned out to be so good at Scrabble. The Baldeziwurlekistanians used their tiles and board to communicate with the people who lived under the hill. The people who lived under the hill knew the future. The Baldeziwurlekistanians gave them fermented milk and honey, and the young women of the village used to go and lie out on the hill and sleep under the stars. Apparently the people under the hill were pretty cute. The important thing was that you never went down into the hill and spent the night there, no matter how cute the guy from under the hill was. If you did, even if you spent only a single night under the hill, when you came out again, a hundred years might have passed. “Remember that,” Zofia said to me. “It doesn’t matter how cute a guy is. If he wants you to come back to his place, it isn’t a good idea. It’s okay to fool around, but don’t spend the night.”
Every once in a while, a woman from under the hill would marry a man from the village, even though it never ended well. The problem was that the women under the hill were terrible cooks. They couldn’t get used to the way time worked in the village, which meant that supper always got burnt, or else it wasn’t cooked long enough. But they couldn’t stand to be criticized. It hurt their feelings. If their village husband complained, or even if he looked like he wanted to complain, that was it. The woman from under the hill went back to her home, and even if her husband went and begged and pleaded and apologized, it might be three years or thirty years or a few generations before she came back out.
Even the best, happiest marriages between the Baldeziwurlekistanians and the people under the hill fell apart when the children got old enough to complain about dinner. But everyone in the village had some hill blood in them.
“It’s in you,” Zofia said, and kissed me on the nose. “Passed down from my grandmother and her mother. It’s why we’re so beautiful.”
When Zofia was nineteen, the shaman-priestess in her village threw the tiles and discovered that something bad was going to happen. A raiding party was coming. There was no point in fighting them. They would burn down everyone’s houses and take the young men and women for slaves. And it was even worse than that. There was going to be an earthquake as well, which was bad news because usually, when raiders showed up, the village went down under the hill for a night and when they came out again, the raiders would have been gone for months or decades or even a hundred years. But this earthquake was going to split the hill right open.
The people under the hill were in trouble. Their home would be destroyed, and they would be doomed to roam the face of the earth, weeping and lamenting their fate until the sun blew out and the sky cracked and the seas boiled and the people dried up and turned to dust and blew away. So the shaman-priestess went and divined some more, and the people under the hill told her to kill a black dog and skin it and use the skin to make a purse big enough to hold a chicken, an egg, and a cooking pot. So she did, and then the people under the hill made the inside of the purse big enough to hold all of the village and all of the people under the hill and mountains and forests and seas and rivers and lakes and orchards and a sky and stars and spirits and fabulous monsters and sirens and dragons and dryads and mermaids and beasties and all the little gods that the Baldeziwurlekistanians and the people under the hill worshipped.
“Your purse is made out of dog skin?” I said. “That’s disgusting!”
“Little dear pet,” Zofia said, looking wistful, “Dog is delicious. To Baldeziwurlekistanians, dog is a delicacy.”
Before the raiding party arrived, the village packed up all of their belongings and moved into the handbag. The clasp was made out of bone. If you opened it one way, then it was just a purse big enough to hold a chicken and an egg and a clay cooking pot, or else a pair of reading glasses and a library book and a pillbox. If you opened the clasp another way, then you found yourself in a little boat floating at the mouth of a river. On either side of you was forest, where the Baldeziwurlekistanian villagers and the people under the hill made their new settlement.
If you opened the handbag the wrong way, though, you found yourself in a dark land that smelled like blood. That’s where the guardian of the purse (the dog whose skin had been sewn into a purse) lived. The guardian had no skin. Its howl made blood come out of your ears and nose. It tore apart anyone who turned the clasp in the opposite direction and opened the purse in the wrong way.
“Here is the wrong way to open the handbag,” Zofia said. She twisted the clasp, showing me how she did it. She opened the mouth of the purse, but not very wide, and held it up to me. “Go ahead, darling, and listen for a second.”
I put my head near the handbag, but not too near. I didn’t hear anything. “I don’t hear anything,” I said.
“The poor dog is probably asleep,” Zofia said. “Even nightmares have to sleep now and then.”
After he got expelled, everybody at school called Jake Houdini instead of Jake. Everybody except for me. I’ll explain why, but you have to be patient. It’s hard work telling everything in the right order.
Jake is smarter and also taller than most of our teachers. Not quite as tall as me. We’ve known each other since third grade. Jake has always been in love with me. He says he was in love with me even before third grade, even before we ever met. It took me a while to fall in love with Jake.
In third grade, Jake knew everything already, except how to make friends. He used to follow me around all day long. It made me so mad that I kicked him in the knee. When that didn’t work, I threw his backpack out the window of the school bus. That didn’t work either, but the next year Jake took some tests and the school decided that he could skip fourth and fifth grade. Even I felt sorry for Jake then. Sixth grade didn’t work out. When the sixth graders wouldn’t stop flushing his head down the toilet, he went out and caught a skunk and set it loose in the boys’ locker room.
The school was going to suspend him for the rest of the year, but instead Jake took two years off while his mother homeschooled him. He learned Latin and Hebrew and Greek, how to write sestinas, how to make sushi, how to play bridge, and even how to knit. He learned fencing and ballroom dancing. He worked in a soup kitchen and made a Super 8 movie about Civil War reenactors who play extreme croquet in full costume instead of firing off cannons. He started learning how to play guitar. He even wrote a novel. I’ve never read it—he says it was awful.
When he came back two years later, because his mother had cancer for the first time, the school put him back with our year, in seventh grade. He was still way too smart, but he was finally smart enough to figure out how to fit in. Plus he was good at soccer and he was yummy. Did I mention that he played guitar? Every girl in school had a crush on Jake, but he used to come home after school with me and play Scrabble with Zofia and ask her about Baldeziwurlekistan.
Jake’s mom was named Cynthia. She collected ceramic frogs and knock-knock jokes. When we were in ninth grade, she had cancer again. When she died, Jake smashed all of her frogs. That was the first funeral I ever went to. A few months later, Jake’s father asked Jake’s fencing teacher out on a date. They got married right after the school expelled Jake for his AP project on Houdini. That was the first wedding I ever went to. Jake and I stole a bottle of wine and drank it, and I threw up in the swimming pool at the country club. Jake threw up all over my shoes.
Product details
- Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (July 1, 2014)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 352 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0812986512
- ISBN-13 : 978-0812986518
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.2 x 0.75 x 7.9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #127,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,346 in Short Stories Anthologies
- #1,693 in Contemporary Fantasy (Books)
- #3,183 in Short Stories (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Kelly Link's debut collection, Stranger Things Happen, was a Firecracker nominee, a Village Voice Favorite Book and a Salon Book of the Year -- Salon called the collection "...an alchemical mixture of Borges, Raymond Chandler, and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Stories from the collection have won the Nebula, the James Tiptree Jr., and the World Fantasy Awards. Her second collection, Magic for Beginners, was a Book Sense pick (and a Best of Book Sense pick); and selected for best of the year lists by Time Magazine, Salon, Boldtype, Village Voice, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Capitol Times. It was published in paperback by Harcourt. Kelly is an editor for the Online Writing Workshop and has been a reader and judge for various literary awards. With Gavin J. Grant and Ellen Datlow she edits The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror (St. Martin's Press). She also edited the anthology, Trampoline. Kelly has visited a number of schools and workshops including Stonecoast in Maine, Washington University, Yale, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, Brookdale Community College, Brookdale, NJ, Lenoir-Rhyne College, Hickory, NC, the Imagination Workshop at Cleveland State University, New England Institute of Art & Communications, Brookline, MA, Clarion East at Michigan State University, Clarion West in Seattle, WA, and Clarion South in Brisbane, Australia. Kelly lives in Northampton, MA. She received her BA from Columbia University and her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Kelly and her husband, Gavin J. Grant, publish a twice-yearly zine, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet -- as well as books -- as Small Beer Press.
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the characters compelling and relatable. They appreciate the author's unique viewpoint and holistic storytelling style. The collections are described as delightful, fun, and whimsical. However, opinions differ on the storytelling quality - some find it delicious and bizarre, while others feel some stories lack focus and intrigue. There are mixed reviews regarding the writing style - some find it well-written and entertaining, while others consider it boring or experimental.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the characters compelling and relatable. They appreciate the candid, matter-of-fact tone that draws them into the story. Readers praise the author's talent and skill.
"...3. The horror creeps up on you unexpectedly. The characters all speak with such a candid, matter-of-fact tone that you're drawn into the strange..." Read more
"...as intricately detailed as Susannah Clarke, as dark and fantastical as Neil Gaiman, and as rich, fun, and whimsical as Dianne Wynne Jones...." Read more
"...But these are so good and she is so gifted that I couldn’t stop reading once I started." Read more
"...Her stories are bizarre and uncanny; her characters are stark and shadowy. This whole collection is fabulous." Read more
Customers find the book engaging. They appreciate the author's unique viewpoint and holistic storytelling style.
"...2. The holistic way in which she tells her stories creates the sense that there's a much larger and stranger world out there than what the..." Read more
"...You'll rarely encounter a writer as warm, adventurous, eclectic and sharp witted as Link...." Read more
"...She writes with a new and unique viewpoint which I have not seen before...." Read more
"...but are still intriguing" Read more
Customers enjoy the collection. They find the stories delightful and engaging.
"...Simply put, these collections are delightful, the stories perfect for engaging your intellect and sense of whimsy and purging yourself of the mundane..." Read more
"...as Susannah Clarke, as dark and fantastical as Neil Gaiman, and as rich, fun, and whimsical as Dianne Wynne Jones...." Read more
"...This whole collection is fabulous." Read more
Customers enjoy the book. They find it fun and whimsical, like Dianne Wynne Jones' work.
"...aren't for everyone, but once you accept what they are they are a wonderful ride." Read more
"...Susannah Clarke, as dark and fantastical as Neil Gaiman, and as rich, fun, and whimsical as Dianne Wynne Jones...." Read more
"...Parts of this book were fun and imaginative, but a lot of it was annoying. I do not recommend this book at all." Read more
Customers have different views on the storytelling quality. Some find the stories bizarre and uncanny, with shadowy characters. Others mention that some of the stories lack focus and intrigue, while others find them too fantasy-based.
"...There are hints of humor, hints of fantasy, hints of horror, awe-inducing strangeness that seems more and more normal the further you read, and..." Read more
"...That said, the stories are well written,. That said, not my cup of tea. Tom out" Read more
"...Simply put, these collections are delightful, the stories perfect for engaging your intellect and sense of whimsy and purging yourself of the mundane..." Read more
"Beautiful writing and fabulously creative. The surrealistic stories aren't for everyone, but once you accept what they are they are a wonderful ride." Read more
Customers have different views on the writing style. Some find it well-written and entertaining, while others feel it's boring and dismal.
"Beautiful writing and fabulously creative. The surrealistic stories aren't for everyone, but once you accept what they are they are a wonderful ride." Read more
"This was a book club pick and none of us enjoyed the book - it is not a style of writing that I enjoy and the stories had no ending" Read more
"...not usually a fan of zombie-ish stories, but I liked this author's strong writing and voice...." Read more
"Kelly Link is an amazing writer!..." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2013I came across Kelly Link's work after having read Karen Russell's St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and listened to a talk by Russell, wherein she mentioned Kelly Link as a major influence. Due to my adoration for St. Lucy's, I had to check out something by Link.
A breakdown of what I loved:
1. Link masterfully uses clean and evocative prose that is difficult to find in writing with hints of fantasy. A lot of authors go the route of using sprawling sentences to create an ethereal quality. Link's prose gets across the same amount of description while maintaining a "realness" (for lack of better wording). Some of my favorite instances:
"She fixed her reptilian, watery gaze on him. She had problematical tear ducts. Though she could have had a minor surgical procedure to fix this, she'd chosen not to. It was a tactical advantage, the way it spooked people" (75).
"She'd had a passion for children with a certain color of red hair. Twins she had never been able to abide (they were the wrong kind of magic), although she'd sometimes attempted to match up sets of children, as though she had been putting together a chess set, and not a family. If you were to say a witch's chess set, instead of a witch's family, there would be some truth in that. Perhaps this is true of other families as well" (126).
2. The holistic way in which she tells her stories creates the sense that there's a much larger and stranger world out there than what the characters in a specific story are experiencing. She uses a lot of "asides" in which other events and ideas are alluded to, which does a lot to build the complexity of her world:
"In the witch's house the dead are sometimes quite talkative.
But the witch has nothing else to say at this time" (129).
3. The horror creeps up on you unexpectedly. The characters all speak with such a candid, matter-of-fact tone that you're drawn into the strange things in their world and nothing feels contrived (like things sometimes feel in short stories with horror-y twists).
4. I can't quite place the genre of Magic for Beginners. There are hints of humor, hints of fantasy, hints of horror, awe-inducing strangeness that seems more and more normal the further you read, and compelling characters with modern, relatable concerns despite their odd situations. Whatever it is, it works.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2018I am most reminded of the New Wave in science fiction. Stories that only just meet the criteria to be in the genre, and are self consciously 'literate'. That said, the stories are well written,. That said, not my cup of tea. Tom out
- Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2006In his liner notes to a 2005 CD titled "Back in New York," jazz enthusiast Peter Straub (yes, that Peter Straub), briefly touches on the concept of mastery, stating "What is represented here is mastery of a very particular kind. As a rule, mastery of any kind demands both a rich talent and an utter dedication to its development; in improvised music, only a few obtain mastery of this kind." Although Straub was referring to the great tenor saxaphonist Scott Hamilton with those words, he probably could be persuaded that they also apply to fantasist Kelly Link (heck, he's already dubbed her "the most impressive writer of her generation") , who, for the last decade, has demonstrated an unparalleled mastery of the short story form in every sense of that word. In retrospect, to say she has mastered the form is perhaps an understatement: not only has she tamed this particular beast, she's taught it a few new tricks. Her talent and dedication shine through in each and every tale.
Link's collections are treasure troves of creative storytelling, each volume a celebration of the power of the imagination, each story a unique, glittering gem worthy of careful and repeated inspection. Combining fantastic concepts with familiar elements of the real world, Link's works reveal there are myriad ways of interpreting and portraying "reality". You'll rarely encounter a writer as warm, adventurous, eclectic and sharp witted as Link. Fearless, there is no place she won't go; empathic, she effortlessly conveys to her audience the nuances of her characters' pain, bewilderment, joy and understanding.
Stranger Things Happen contains stories about dead men, newlyweds, twins, thieves, princesses, strange cousins, cannibals, marriage, unrequited love, ghosts, and girl detectives. Magic for Beginners sports stories featuring handbags, zombies, cannons, a haunted house, felines, contingency plans, divorce, a television show, and peacocks. Link writes about each of these topics with equal aplomb and inventiveness. She's aware of the numerous levels of story, of tales within tales, of the many paths she can choose in telling her stories-amazingly, she always picks what seems to be the most entertaining road to travel.
Her titles alone are arresting. Stranger Things Happen (featuring stories written between 1995-2000) contains, among others, "The Specialist's Hat," "Flying Lessons," "Travels with the Snow Queen," "Shoe and Marriage," "Most of My Friends are Two Thirds Water," and "The Girl Detective." Magic for Beginners (with stories written between 2002-2004) boasts the title story, "Catskin," "Some Zombie Contingency Plans," and "The Great Divorce." The titles fulfill their strange promise in surprising ways.
Simply put, these collections are delightful, the stories perfect for engaging your intellect and sense of whimsy and purging yourself of the mundane. Check them out, and learn for yourself that, when it comes to spinning edgy tall tales, the unconventional Link is in a class by herself.
Top reviews from other countries
- MrsDanversReviewed in the United Kingdom on May 14, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars Writing at its most betwitching
If you like realism in fiction, 'Magic for Beginners' might not be for you. Move on, nothing to see here. However, if you like a sprinkling of magic with your realism (ok, maybe more than a sprinkling – a teaspoon, a tablespoon, a whole darn shaker's worth of magic) get ready to enter Kelly Link's Carroll-esque world where everyone has a zombie contingency plan, the living can marry the dead and the stone animals on the lawn are not what they seem. With the exception of the odd straightforward, albeit terrifying, fairytale such as the very disturbing 'Catskin', Link's tales usually have one foot in the real world and the other in – well, a world like no other but one with its own internal logic. And she is very funny. Take this comparison of vampires vs zombies: 'Some people thought of vampires as rock stars, but really they were more like Martha Stewart. Vampires were prissy...They had to look good. Zombies weren't like that... You didn't need luxury items like silver bullets or crucifixes or holy water. You just shot zombies in the head...' And the marital problems between a living man and his dead wife (they met at a cocktail party given by a New Yorker-profiled medium and matchmaker) in 'The Great Divorce': 'The children had communicated to their father, via the household planchette and Ouija board, a desire to be taken to Disneyland; because divorce is always hard on the children, and because Disneyland offered, at that time, an extraordinary discount to the dead.' And all this might be going on at the All-Night Convenience or while someone is commuting to work. That's not to say she doesn't tackle emotions; many of her characters seem to be lost or alone in the world or estranged from their loved one(s). If all this sounds entrancing, don't move on, there's plenty to see here. Highly recommended.
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RomurReviewed in France on August 15, 2014
2.0 out of 5 stars Sans queue ni tête
A la recherche de bons bouquins de Science Fiction ou de Fantasy, j'ai consulté la liste des prix Nebula et Hugo remis ces dernières années et le nom de Kelly Link est ressorti parmi d'autres pour sa nouvelle "The faery handbag" qui fait partie du recueil "Magic for beginners".
Kelly Link s'inscrit dans la veine fantastique, avec d'assez longues nouvelles aux personnages un peu déjantés ou déséquilibrés dont l'existence sombre à petites touches dans l'inquiétant, voire le cauchemar, sans que parfois les protagonistes semblent s'en inquiéter outre mesure. Si vous cherchez de l'horreur et du gore, vous allez être déçus : elle procède par petites touches, avec une recherche stylistique certaine.
Malheureusement, dans sa recherche intellectualiste elle s'égare parfois dans l'abscons. Si l'originalité est assez souvent au rendez-vous, quel dommage que les fins soient gâchées... par des non-fins.
Elle va devoir faire de sérieux progrès si elle veut dépasser le stade de la littérature fantastique pour adolescent gothique de bonne famille.
Ceci confirme par ailleurs l'impression que m'avaient déjà donné les prix Hugo et Nebula : c'est comme le prix Goncourt chez nous, à vouloir primer quelqu'un tous les ans, on est amené à primer des médiocres.
- RJ MasonReviewed in the United Kingdom on July 11, 2009
4.0 out of 5 stars Book review
This is my second copy of Magic for Beginners. Strange and quirky book with very strong imagery which is both unsettling and funny - all at the same time. Loved the book and have loaned it to friends which is why I have bought another copy. If you liked the movie Shaun of the Dead and like quirky stories - this is for you.
- SheenaReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 9, 2014
3.0 out of 5 stars Didn't finish it.
I was disappointed with this book, although that may well have more to do with my taste than with the book itself. I found the kind of thing I was looking for in " Could You But Find It" by Robert Cilley. It is difficult to explain, but there is magic and them there is Magic. I like a book that can convince the reader that the Magic might be real.
- T. A. WrightReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 11, 2012
2.0 out of 5 stars Enough quirkiness for a trilogy
I did not like this book. Try to imagine being stuck in a lift with the Mad Hatter. Yes it might be entertaining for a short while but imagine being trapped in there for several hours - with no hope of rescue.
If you like stories with clever ideas, this book has hundreds of them. If you want to lose yourself in endless flights of fancy, fun characters, wild adventures and fabulous fairy tale themes, place your order now!
But wait... If you value character development, some attempt at creative restraint, prose that doesn't threaten to overwhelm a good tale, and a sense that each individual journey has been satisfactorily completed, then this may not be the purchase for you.
I never got the feeling that these highly imaginative tales were ever going anywhere. It was all just too quirky. The book seemed to want to prove how smart it was in every single line. Consequently, the stories were given little room to breathe. If the phrase `style over content' applies to one book, and one book only, Magic For Beginners must surely be a contender.
I may have a curse put on me for this review. I only hope you're grateful.