I will read anything Alix E. Harrow writes. If I didn’t know that before (I did), I certainly would now. While I don’t typically gravitate towards short story collections, I’ll give them a go sometimes, and since I’ve liked everything else Harrow has written, I had to grab this collection. Most of the stories in it have been previously published, and there are 5 new ones.
I’ve generally found the stories in such collections to be hit or miss, but I liked all of these, though there were certainly some I preferred over others. My favorites were probably the ones I’ve read before: “The Six Deaths of the Saint,” “The Knight and the Butcherbird,” and “The Sycamore and the Sybil.” The first of those eventually became, or at least inspired, Harrow’s book The Everlasting, and I would love it if the second one day expanded into a full-length novel. It seems like there’s a lot of richness that could be mined from this atmospheric world. I don’t know if these were my favorites because of their familiarity or if I would have liked them as much even if I’d been reading them for the first time. “The Ransom of Miss Coraline Connelly” was also a lot of fun as an unexpected variation on the Hades and Persephone myth.
I have always enjoyed Harrow’s beautiful, rich prose (e.g., “Storms do not arrive to this Island, like guests; they land, like blows”) and ability to craft stories that feel like fables and fairy tales. Some of these stories also included a couple of gut-punch lines, like a werewolf commenting that only women are turned “Because men are so often the reason we need teeth in the first place.” I’m sure her novels also contain standout lines like this, but they aren’t as fresh in my memory right now.
At this point, Harrow could write a book in a genre I’ve never been interested in, and I’d probably read it. I can’t wait for her next one.
