A Child Again

by Robert Coover

Casey returns to bat. The Pied Piper pipes again. Little Red Riding Hood is not safe yet. Robert Coover returns with a new collection of short fiction, reexamining our shared narrative heritage — myths, fairy tales, and favorite childhood stories — and unearthing the underlying hope, fear, and wonder at their core. Playful yet systematic, satirical yet empathetic, Coover uses the stories of our past to point towards a fiction of the future.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Literature, Adult, Fairy Tales

276 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2005

About the author

Robert Lowell Coover was an American novelist, short story writer, and T. B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction. He became a proponent of electronic literature and was a founder of the Electronic Literature Organization.

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

. . . Death is the inevitable punchline for the joke called life.

I suppose we'd all like to think that our favorite childhood characters stay forever within the pages of their books, waiting patiently for us to rediscover them. They don't grow up, they don't grow old, they don't cheat, or kill, or become hopelessly addicted to booze and pills.

Robert Coover says differently - the lives of our literary pals go on. They've entertained us once already, and now they've got their own shit to attend to. Deal with it.

These stories are both sad and funny. I didn't love all of them, though most were at least interesting. I was particularly enchanted by The Last One, Coover's twist on Perrault's Bluebeard.

If you're looking for well written, unusual pokes at classic fairy tales, by all means, have at these tales. If you want to keep your sweet, sweet memories intact, avoid them like plague infested rats.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

It won’t be on every every page but you’ll find something in A Child Again, I mean you’ll find somewhere that Coover’s tickling your funny=bone. It’ll happen.

Coover is 75. (er, today he’s 82).

ToC=wise, we’ve got ::

Sir John Paper and Puff the Dragon get old. What’s that like?

Punch -- Murder and Mayhem. You can count on Judy pop’ing in too.

The Invisible Man is a love story. Yes, another love story. But with a twist. They are both invisible.

The Dead Queen -- Seriously, you know that if fairy tales were ever for=realsies, they’d all end something like this.

Playing House would be grand metaphysical fun were it palm=sweatingly fantastic fiction, but it falls flat. Why?

Puzzle Page: Riddle :: The first of a trinity of pranks on the page, a pizzle;puzzle. You are asked to puzzle the order of The Five lined up to be fired at in that one famous line of execution.

The Fisherman and the Jinn :: What reallyreally happens when a Magic Lamp shows up on the shore, tickling your toes.

Alice in the Time of the Jabberwock -- 134 years later it is revealed what exactly the Jabberwock is. It remains only to ask whether a male author can adequately pen the experience of being visited by the Jabberwock.

The Fallguy’s Faith ;; This is not your average Fall Guy.

The Return of the Dark Children :: Look, Bob, that Piper=guy took care of our problem. It’s really not necessary for you to come knockin’ around telling us it’s not really a solution only a temporary solution and you don’t need to tell us it’ll come back to bite us in the ass. We’ve only heard that one a million times! And besides, this was children we were relieved of, not that silly global warming thing.

The Presidents :: You’ve met The Cat in the Hat. Now meet The Presidents!!

Puzzle=Page: Chicago Cryptogram. Who knows? Something about pre-Socratic philosophers in Chicago?

McDuff on the Mound. Good gods!! Do we really have to do the baseball bit every time we flap open the Coover=covers? Other hand/sides, there is always that certain narrative tension which can only be developed against the backfield of an athletics sort of outfield. I mean, will McDuff finally strike out that Casey guy? No S P O I L E R S !!!!

Grandmother’s Nose -- really a classic instance of the classic Coover informing us about the real economy which flows underneath all our fairy=booted tales. This one about a certain girl and a certain hood. Who needs Lacan for this?

Puzzle Page: Suburban Jigsaw -- Love triangles have only three sides. This one’s got 16 (sixteen) pieces. Puzzle pieces. On page 194 it’s spelled out ;; your task is to id which character from the story maps onto which puzzle=piece and subsequently to spell out the acrostic resulting from their names. Kind of thing. Meanwhile, lots of sex being had in this town.

Stick Man. Coover lays to rest the literary superstition that fictional characters must have three dimensions in order to move the reader to tears. This one’s got only two D and you’ll sob till you can’t sob no=more.

The Last One. You’ll see the end coming from a mile off, so I won’t even bother teasing you about spoiler tags. Lovely, though.

Aesop’s Forest. Really quite a masterful piece. What happens to Aesop? And when his lion gets old, can he still get it up? And the falling turtle is much more compelling than that one famous falling whale. Turtles are funnier.

Heart Suit. One story. 13 tarts. Stolen. The King’s tarts. (You decide what the ‘tarts’ “sym=bull=ize”!) He’s raging mad and will uncover the culprit. The story has a classic structure ;;, beginning, middle, end. Beginning and end are determined by a deistic author ; the middle consists of thirteen cards, read these in what order you will. Was first published in a fancy McSweeney’s issue :: see that one HERE.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far, I've read only some of Robert Coover's short stories and novellas: Stepmother, Noir, Spanking the Maid, Briar Rose, and A Night at the Movies: You Must Remember This: Stories. Next on my list is Pricksongs and Descants, and then I'll try digging into his novels.

I adore his "run-on" sentences, rife with commas, ellipses, and parentheses, which make perfect sense to me, and roll along so deliciously; I get happily lost in his writing.

I want to write like him when (if) I grow up. (Well, maybe without all the sexual asides; but still).

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily the best of the three Coover collections I've read, and at points almost as good as The Universal Baseball Association. The quality of the writing--the look-at-me experimentation of Pricksongs and Descants--isn't here, but these stories are much more polished, mature, and meaningful. Many of them are retellings of timeworn tales, but in a way that emphasizes the sadness and loss that accompanies aging into irrelevance and impuissance (which makes sense, given that Coover is now a very old man and is probably thinking about this stuff). "McDuff on the Mound," "Aesop's Forest," "Grandmother's Nose," and especially "Alice in the Time of the Jabberwock" are real standouts among the twice-told tales, but the two original pieces "Suburban Jigsaw" (about the sordid nature of the sex lives of people in a single suburb, with a jigsaw model to illustrate the relationships) and "Playing House" are the highlights of the collection. In fact, everything about this collection is fantastic, from the book design (as much as I dislike the McSweeney's collective, I must admit that everything they publish looks awesome) to the curious "Heart Suit" story-deck that accompanies it. Although there's nothing transcendent in here--and I don't think there's ever been anything genuinely transcendent about Coover's work; he's at best a highly skilled postmodern bricoleur--it's a ripping good time nonetheless (I mean, Snow White getting "slammed" by the Seven Dwarves for no apparent reason? Alice becoming a gross old woman whose physical decline is described in excruciating detail? Yes please!). Highly recommended.

[Маx Nestelieiev · Rating 5 out of 5]

прекрасна збірка довколодитячих історій і казкових сюжетів: є і дракони, і щуролов, і fallguy, і ніс бабусі Червоної Шапочки, і Езоп, і Аліса, і Панч, і невидимець, і Білосніжка, і Синя Борода... і навіть оповідання на картах, вкладене в кишеньку на обкладинці. загалом - шикарне видання

[Renee Alberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

Robert Coover populates this collection of short stories with characters from myths, fairy tales and folklore who display surprising twists of modern sensibility. Prince Charming suffers an existential crisis at his wicked stepmother-in-law’s funeral. Jackie Paper, now an aging equestrian, returns to Honah-Lee to find Puff the Magic Dragon listless and depressed. The Invisible Man abandons his superhero lifestyle for a lonely path of perfect crime. Alice goes through menopause among her ageless, insane Wonderland companions.
While he infuses the stories with humor, Coover also uses the familiar icons of our cultural narrative to access serious themes. “Playing House,†a parable, questions the difference between light and darkness, and human response to both. “The Return of the Dark Children†visits post-Piper Hamelin to explore the roots of hysteria.
Coover electrifies his stories with his characteristic sarcasm and witty wordplay. Vocabulary ranging in topic from elocution to royal court titles to architecture should satisfy any logophile. Each tale flows into the next via common theme or tone, creating a compelling narrative thread through different settings and voices. These stories transform formerly two-dimensional, moralistic caricatures into complex beings enhanced with sexuality, anxiety, memory, fears and hopes. Coover affords us the chance to reevaluate our culture by seeing its foundations anew, giving us the freedom to question it from the same fresh perspective we did as children.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed Coover's Stepmother but this is nearly as pretentious and unfun as McSweeney's gets. A few stories were interesting though, especially "Punch" and "The Dead Queen," but if you picked this up to scratch that pomo fairy-tale itch just read Stepmother instead.

[Brian James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world of children's fables and fairy tales becomes fertile soil for nurturing Coover's imagination in this collection of short stories, which like the tales the derive from, examine many complicated aspects of the human condition in veiled and playful ways. Coover's prose, always worthy of praise, is in fine form here. He has a way of transforming the innocent into the perverse with a few beautifully worded and carefully placed phrases.

I thoroughly enjoyed the journey this book takes the reader on. From the opening page where we are introduced to Puff the Dragon, brooding in his cave and longing for the long lost boy who used to come to play with him, I knew this was going to be my kind of book. Many of the stories, including Puff's tale and the story of Alice going through menopause in the absurd landscape of Wonderland, deal with the conflicts that arise from growing up and feeling disconnected with the child you used to be. Not an easy theme to craft, but Coover does masterfully.

Other stories take a children's tale as way of discussing the horrible undercurrent that lies just under the surface of our society. As it has often been pointed out, a human community is a fragile eco-system and it would only take one interruption of routine to send it spiraling out of control. This idea is demonstrated with heartbreaking cruelty in the "The Return of the Dark Children" which details what happens to the town the Pied Piper left childless so many years before. The selfish nature of people, and their willingness to exploit others' ignorance, is incredibly captured in this story. In a similar vein, "Stick Man" examines how quickly human wonder can turn to boredom, which often turns to cruelty.

Though the themes are often weighty, the delight of Coover's work is his ability to inject humor into even the most awful circumstances. For example "The Last One", a retelling of one of the darkest fairy tales and also my favorite fairy tale, is one of the book's most playful while still staying true to the horrific nature of the original.

As with any story collection, there are stories that rise to the top and others that simply exist. There weren't any stories in here that I didn't like, though I did wish for more from the Little Red Riding Hood tale, which seems ripe for Coover but here felt somewhat restrained. All in all, this book is a true delight, and not mention one of the finest printed editions that I've seen for a book in quite some time.

[M. Hornbuckle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, in ways that are both good and bad, marks a return to the Robert Coover we came to admire when we were an impressionable English major. Re-writing fairy tales and other traditional narrative forms is one of the things Coover does best, but he's done this sort of thing before--many times. Here he does it exceptionally well, and if not for that, we'd recommend just picking up a used copy of Pricksongs and Descants (which you should actually do regardless).

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of Coover's best books.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know that I was quite in the mood for Coover just now, although I appreciated his gifts as much as ever. Or perhaps it's that this collection is Coover in his 70s and that's a different Coover from the one in his 30s/40s that I so adore from Pricksongs and Descants.

He's diving into childhood stories (for the most part) -- fairy tales and such. The Pied Piper, Snow White, Alice, Little Red Riding Hood, but also adult riffs on the logic puzzles I remember so fondly from fourth grade and twists on the Invisible Man and the hagiographic love students are meant to have for Presidents. For my money, nearly all of these stories ran on a touch too long and what shocked in early Coover is now a bit predictable. Still, there's much to be found here for the fans and the newcomers alike.

Oh and "Heart Suit" -- attached to the back as a set of shuffle-able cards -- is a delightful (if, yes, a bit too long) Oulipo experiment. Nice to see, at the very least, that the tricky gleam has never once left his eye.

[Charles Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairy tales are so often about children confronting the fear of growing up. Coover, being, you know, old, takes it to the next logical step - about the fear of aging, and death. Harrowing, and beautiful. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a midlife crisis and freak out about not being a kid anymore.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just picked this little book up from the Attic, mostly because it looked so cool and deals with classic stories and characters of Cildren's Literature whch, as a storyteller I have an active interest in. It also came with 15 large cards, that tell the story of the Kng Of Hearts trying to find the culpret who stole his tarts. The cards represent thirteen members of the court and can be shuffled and read in any order as long as the top card is first and the last is the Joker. I am an avid card collecter, usually tarot cards but these are very cool. It is like getting an extra story or thirteen. McSweeny's Books is the publisher, the company started by Dave Eggers, that often puts out fun and unusual volumes. Now, to read!
I loved the First story, about Puff The Magic Dragon, which used the wrds of a well known song to craft a world of wonder that I had spent much of my own imagination wondering about.
The same with The Invisible man; who hasn't imagined what it woulld really be like to be invisible.
I love Coover's style and imagination.
I keep ths book at hand to give my i agination an out when reality gets too real. Each story a different magic carpet for my mind.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a short story collection not as defining as Pricksongs and Descants, but who cares, Coover is a master -- of all the metafictionalists he's the wittiest, funniest, and, despite the fact that he so often reconfigures the raw material of fairy tales, legends, and fables according to his own perverse cosmology, the most human. I thought reading this while also reading Don Quixote was appropriate since Coover is so influenced and indebted to Cervantes. But now I'm a little sad -- there's only one remaining Coover book, Spanking the Maid, still waiting for me.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection was something of a mixed bag. There were some great stories -- in particular, I quite liked the retellings of Little Red Riding Hood ("Grandmother's Nose") and Bluebeard ("The Last One"), and I enjoyed the clever "Heart Suit" deck-of-playing-cards story -- but they weren't all as good and some I disliked. The book is an interesting project, though, and was worth reading for a few excellent stories and a couple of other pretty good ones ("The Fallguy's Faith" and "The Return of the Dark Children").

[Xavier · Rating 3 out of 5]

a different view of childrens' fairytales. I know we've seen this before, but it's always fun read a new take on them.

the book comes with a deck of cards that can be read in any order. i didn't try that, but perhaps i should sometime.

it's a mc sweeney's book, so that means i bought if for the cover. again.

[Missy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Particularly liked the Invisible Man short story. A few others, but that one - maybe because we've been reading the graphic novel version of the actual story with Dex (Illustrated classics).

I need to check it out again, because I didn't finish it before we left town (due while we're away, almost done with it, too).

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Refreshing & lovely and sad. My favorite chapters were the retelling of Puff the Magic Dragon and Snow White, and Aespos Fables. The book cover has a back pocket that holds cards you can shuffle and reshuffle and can be read in any order and read a story about the Knave of Hearts.

[Eddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great short stories.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re imagined Post Modernistic Fairy tales, and Child Tales, not for children. Physicaly beautiful little book, with a deck of cards for a story about the Jack of Hearts.

[Dyani · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh robert coover, it's not fair, you know exactly the best way to write the kind of scraped-up, puked-out fairy tales my cats and i love reading.

[Matt Jaeger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found it glib, pithy, trite. Didn't resonate with me at all.

[Whiskeyb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some stories I liked better than others. The Invisible Man story was pretty rad. Oh. And the cover is amazing.

[Lizzie]

This came from the Superhero Supply store, sort of a present from my old roommate.

[Etola · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting premise, but not really a style of writing I enjoy. I never even finished all the stories inside. I did enjoy "Sir John Paper Returns to Honah-Lee," though.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story about the Invisible Man is awesome.