Stepmother

by Robert Coover, Michael Kupperman (Illustrator)

Robert Coover, father of modern American experimental fiction, returns with "Stepmother," a masterful reimagining of the fairy-tale tradition. There is magic, there are princes, there are painful castrations. There is also beauty, and true love, of a sort.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Fairy Tales

90 pages, Hardcover

First published June 10, 2004

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

[Tony Vacation · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stepmother - my first Coover - is a bawdy soup of abusive fairy-tale archetypes, written in bouncy, run-on sentence that scissor and snaggle through dozens of fabulous scenarios familiar to anyone who has seen a few Disney toons. From what I gather, Coover has made a career off of reclaiming and re-writing all the world's myths and fables into zany and sadistic postmodern pastiches. Not sure if Coover's writing style is enticing enough to convince me to wade through one of his many unread and unpurchased doorstops, but I liked this short, disjointed novella with all its castrations, frog vomiting, pin-cushion sex, incest and executions by being stuffed in a barrel and thrown into the river. Also the illustrations are fun.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Growing up the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show was my favorite cartoon, and in the program the Fractured Fairytales were my favorite vignettes. I don't know why it has taken me this many Coovers to make the connection, but this slender beauty of a story finally bridged that gap.

There is more than one fractured fairytale at work in these 90 pages - and in pure Coover glory he does much within the parsimony of pages. The Stepmother is but one of the players between the covers; violence and trickery are employed to their inevitable ends. As every proper fairytale does, whether fractured or no.

[Маx Nestelieiev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Кувер майстерно працює в казково-антологічному жанрі, об'єднуючи всі сюжети в один і граючи водночас на всіх клавішах масової культури. тут в одному флаконі - Пан Смерть, таємничий ліс, Старий Солдат, Ogress, три брати, мачуха-відьма і її руда донька Little Furball+усі знані й незнані магічні артефакти.

[Fostergrants · Rating 2 out of 5]

i was a sucker for the cover, green cloth with an art deco style embossing in silver. i'm also now curious to see what else coover has to offer. i like fairy tales with all the 'grimm' back in them. a cross between snow white and the marquis de sade. i thought this book was disjointed though. it jumps around and i was left unsatisfied. i also thought that mr coover's habit of letting sentences run on out of control with commas everywhere muddied the story. i will refrain from further opinion until i read something else of his. i'm going back to gregory maguire in the meantime.

[Hans · Rating 4 out of 5]

An "adult fairy tale" novella wherein archetypes and character arcs fight for dominance within a dark wood. It's a short humorous exploration with very long sentences. It was a good read as I wait for the next books to arrive at the library.

Oh, and it is another handsome volume from McSweeney's.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

This Review is on Strike

[Tyler Ookami]

A short but incredibly dense novella that truly does feel like some lost medieval work. Coover is extremely hit or miss but I really vibe with his all setting, minimal characters or plot approach to fantasy. There are much more interesting ideas around systems of magic and the manipulation of archetypes in here than in fantasy works that are hundreds of pages long. I love the idea of metafiction as a system of magic and also casting biblical figures as fairy tale wizards. Little Furball, a sort of semi-feral demi-human cursed to have ash-colorerd skin and patches of fur as a result of curse put upon her when she dared to consummate the incestuous relationship she was groomed into, is the most interesting character to me personally. A much superior retreading of Briar Rose's ground, this features a similar time game but does have something of a forward moving plot that just happens to be very cyclical rather than being stuck in time. Again, this is super dense despite its short length, so I feel there's a lot I didn't get out of it on the first read. Will definitely come back to this someday.

[Brittany Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny, though pretty twisted. I'm generally disappointed by the "adult fairy tale" genre, but this was a pleasant surprise.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why didn’t I love this book. It had all the scent of what I love. Postmodern. Fairy tale. Feminist.

And yet.

[Justine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE THIS BOOK! Robert Coover's writing style is beautiful, intriguing, imaginative...essentially he really knows how to turn a phrase. This book is laden with so many images and idea I re-read passages from it frequently.

[Tim Hainley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seemed like the sorta book that Stephen King would blurb the crap out of. Which has been a red flag I've missed more than once. But in this case, I actually enjoyed the book. I'm not sure if this proves or disproves that particular theory.

[Judson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soonish, I'll rave about this book, an amalgamated Cooverization of the deep, dark European fairy tale strain.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, though pretty twisted. I'm generally disappointed by the "adult fairy tale" genre, but this was a pleasant surprise.

[Mjhancock · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fantasy atmosphere is great, but there isn't really much here in the way of story.

[Beth Shields-Szostak]

1st edition