troisoiseaux

Continued my short story kick with a new collection by Louise Erdrich, Python's Kiss; I particularly liked her unexpected* foray into sci-fi with a pair of stories set in a San Junipero-like digital afterlife, one about a woman plotting vengeance on her father (also dead, in the same afterlife) and the other about a woman whose version of heaven includes raising a construct of her daughter through (but not past) childhood, over and over, until the current version – the "8037th Caroline" – refuses to fade away and takes over her mother's (after)life instead. Two of the other stories I liked best also shared a thematic link, of women surviving abusive marriages: contemporary fiction played straight in "Wedding Dresses" – the titular dresses a story framework for a woman telling her niece about her four prior marriages – and with a magical-realism twist in "Borsalino," in which the main character's encounter with a ghostly thief in Venice decades before helps her leave her abusive husband. Snakes are another recurring theme. Cool black-and-white illustrations by Erdrich's daughter at the beginning of each story, frequently blurring line between drawing and comic strip.

* It came as a surprise to me, anyway— I'd forgotten about/haven't read her dystopian speculative fiction novel Future Home of the Living God.