Blue Beyond Blue: Extraordinary Tales for Ordinary Dilemmas

by Lauren Slater

Mermaids, seal women, little girls born of eggs, old men born of prematurely aged parents, and other strange creatures populate award-winning author Lauren Slater's stories of magic, psychology, pain, and release. Slater depicts the modern-day psycho-pharmaceutical industry and our ongoing obsession with chemically synthetic solutions, the staleness and surprises embedded in married erotic love, the conflicts in the mother-daughter bond, the universal struggle with dependency and addiction, and more. In addition, she explicitly and implicitly explores the value that fairy tales and fables still have in our culture as tools of healing and illumination.

"World-weary grown-ups will find Slater's tales delightfully wry" (Amanda Heller, Boston Sunday Globe) as she successfully combines her skills as a storyteller and her profound knowledge of psychology to create a bizarre world that is also hauntingly familiar. Daring and absurd, poignant and disturbing, these stories are beautifully written and will enchant and edify adult readers forever after.

Genres: Short Stories, Magical Realism, Short Story Collection, Nonfiction, Fairy Tales, Psychology, Science Fiction Fantasy

224 pages, Paperback

Published August 17, 2006

About the author

Lauren Slater (born March 21, 1963) is an American psychotherapist and writer.

She is the author of numerous books, including Welcome to My Country, Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, Opening Skinner’s Box, and Blue Beyond Blue, a collection of short stories. Slater’s most recent book is The $60,000 Dog: My Life with Animals.

Slater has been the recipient of numerous awards, among them a 2004 National Endowments for the Arts Award, and multiple inclusions in Best American Volumes, and A Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. Slater is also a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Harper's Magazine, and Elle, among others. She has been nominated several times for National Magazine Awards in both the Essay and the Profile category.

Slater was a practicing psychotherapist for 11 years before embarking on a full-time writing career. She served as the Clinical and then the Executive Director of AfterCare Services, and under her watch the company grew from a small inner city office to a vibrant outpatient clinic servicing some of Boston’s most socioeconomically stressed population.

After the birth of her daughter, Slater wrote her memoir Love Works Like This to chronicle the agonizing decisions she made relating to her psychiatric illness and her pregnancy. In a 2003 BBC Woman’s Hour radio interview, and a 2005 article in Child Magazine, Slater provides information on depression during pregnancy and the risks to the woman and her baby.

She lives and writes in Harvard, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a very mild feminism under current in some of these tales. The rest are just amazing tales of men and women. I couldn't stop reading some of these tales one on to another. But a couple had me so stunned I had to take a night out just to grasp what was being said beneath the surface. It's about time someone similar to the Grim Brothers , but with more strong females in the story. I enjoyed it and had to read it within a three day period.

[MissFede · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked some stories but overall I found this collection quite mediocre. It was not bad but nothing really stood out.

[Althea · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up !

i loved the style of writing of these stories ! no matter how old i get i always love fairytales

[Serena · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just have a big problem with allegories. I feel dumb when I read them. Am I getting what the author is trying to say? Why is the squirrel talking? I know that the tree is really important, but I figure out why! Ugh!

[Michael Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best kinds of fairy-tale allegories, the meaning subjectively clear, if objectively absurd.

[Sam Dolph · Rating 3 out of 5]

ok i like the idea of this collection (reimagined fairytales/writing fables as a way to heal & understand oneself and the larger culture) lot better than most of the actual stories themselves, some of which felt utterly pointless?

the collection could’ve benefited by a more pointed theme/through line—together it all felt pretty disjointed as is. there were also some surprisingly pervy moments that made me go “huh.”

[Tasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Be warned: this is a listing for Blue Beyond Blue, Lauren Slater's 2006 collection of symbolic fairy tales, but the majority of the reviews and questions seem to be for Blue Dreams, a 2018 Slater non-fiction book about psychotropic drugs. It's hard to believe that this many people would make this mistake. Maybe it's a Goodreads listing glitch? Regardless, the one I read was the fairy-tale book, which varies in quality as anthologies tend to do. Some of these stories read like literal dreams, full of vivid images that don't hold together into a cohesive narrative. At least one, about a mermaid attending a middle school and drawing a straight-A student down a lovelorn path, is fascinating. Others vary, veering into horror (as fairy tales often do) or seeming like metaphor so thinly veiled that it doesn't seem particularly fictional. I sometimes wish Etgar Keret's fantastical stories were longer and explored their premises in a little more depth. If they did, I'm guessing this is what they'd read like.

[Jessica Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slater crafts a beautifully interwoven world of fairy tale and science. Using her knowledge in psychology/narrative therapy to explore and cultivate morals and messages from her teachings and learnings. Each tale is beautifully written and enchanting with dark motifs and heartfelt woven advice. Each grappling and harrowing, but I could not look away. Yet at the heart of her gifts is a riddle of hope and warnings. She suggests, between the lines, we have everything we need inside ourselves are are more capable than we imagine to transform and transcend and heal. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful way to start the new year with an armoured collection of innate wisdom to take to heart softly like a feather and implement in ripples.

[Marsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tales of women and about women, each different in tone and outlook. Some are happy, some are sad, some are bitter but they’re all women. Browse through this and you’re certain to pick out a favorite or two. (Mine, I suppose, would have to be the gun, if only because it posits a world in which women no longer outfitted themselves to please men.)

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 star. I had to get used to the fairytale-esque writing, but as soon as I did, I really enjoyed the beautiful prose. Each story deals with situations so ordinary, but they are transformed into beautiful tales.

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very interesting concept full of merit and use - Fairy tales have long been the simplified versions of our desires and fears, after all. However, it was too heavy on the old-style of telling such as The Turnip Princess in that logic played very little role and linearity is optional.

[Debs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Adult fairy tales. Nothing extraordinary here, but a nice day read.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange modern fairy tales some of which I don't understand.

[Banzai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fascinating, strangely relevant modern day fairy tales that are not for children.

[Kerri Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best collection of short stories I ever read. Modern takes on classic fairytale themes.

[Sonny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great selection of short stories inspired by fairy tales.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unique, enjoyable short stories.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good. Very thought provoking. Just the right amount of creepy. I'm sorry it was short.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

4+

[Alechia · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Really enjoyed some of the stories whereas others were bland.

[Emily Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25

[Stephanie Gates · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave it two stars for the two stories I actually liked in the collection. Yet another disappointing book as I wind up my 2021 reading

[Joelle Tamraz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Lauren Slater’s writing, but this book of fairy tales was too eclectic and disjointed for my taste. I did, however, find her introduction on writing as a therapeutic process compelling.