Our Fruiting Bodies

by Nisi Shawl

Our Fruiting Bodies collects stories of old growth and fresh decay, of stubborn rebirth and the faint but nonimaginary paths connecting life and nonlife. From the sharp, sweet confessional of their Peter Pan-inspired “Awfully Big Adventure,” through the melting ambitextualities of “Just Us” — from the early, dizzy-eyed quest at the heart of “Looking for Lilith” through the newly unfurling tendrils that pierce the grounds of “I Being Young and Foolish” — Nisi Shawl’s search for the power of fiction’s truth puts pure, precious gifts right here, right in your hands, ripe and ready for reading. Advance Praise Nisi Shawl’s Our Fruiting Bodies is a wilderness of untamed magic to explore, ever changing underfoot, beauty thorned and fertile with meaning, nurtured by the most talented of keepers. Shawl trusts their readers to be attuned to the mysteries of the imagined, rather than sated by formula or convention.
—Indrapramit Das, author of The Devourers Review Shawl ( Everfair ) creates a fantastical and sometimes unsettling tapestry with these 18 wild flights of fancy. Several of these stories call back to older tales; “Salt on the Dance Floor” and “The Tawny Bitch” have echoes of “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast,” respectively, while “She Tore” follows Wendy Darling and other familiar characters through life after Neverland. Among the standouts are “Street Worm,” “Queen of Dirt,” and “Conversion Therapy,” all about a girl named Brit who discovers that the world teems with dangerous invisible entities. Throughout the linked narratives, Brit comes quite literally into her power and helps other young Black kids like herself find their own. “Vulcanization” and “Cruel Sistah” shift the collection into horror, bringing an unsettling edge as the characters of both stories encounter ghosts that have sprung from their misdeeds. Less memorable are “Big Mama Yaga’s,” about an unusual architect, and the WWI-set “A Beautiful Stream,” which lack the dynamism of the other tales. “Just Between Us,” the mysterious and winding tale of Dolores, Little Girl, and the dead women that keep appearing in their house, ends the anthology on a strong note. Rich in diversity and imagination, this will delight any speculative fiction reader.
Publishers Weekly , Nov. 2022

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

324 pages, Paperback

Published October 31, 2022

About the author

Nisi Shawl is a founder of the diversity-in-speculative-fiction nonprofit the Carl Brandon Society and serves on the Board of Directors of the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop. Their story collection Filter House was a winner of the 2009 Tiptree/Otherwise Award, and their debut novel, Everfair, was a 2016 Nebula finalist. Shawl edited Bloodchildren: Stories by the Octavia E. Butler Scholars (2013). They coedited Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler (2013).

Reviews

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author's biography says that Nisi Shawl is best known for fiction dealing with race, gender and colonialism. Those are often the topics of these stories. The protagonists are often women of color, sometimes practitioners of religion reminiscent of African or Caribbean ones.

One of the things to look for in a story is internal consistency: Is the language and style appropriate to the place, time and characters? (For instance, high fantasy uses a more elevated language and syntax, crime fiction a grittier one with slang). Shawl is very attentive to this, matching the tone and vocabulary to the story. In the Arthurian tale “I Being Young and Foolish” it feels Arthurian (“Three and twenty years had passed”), while the story centered on the Belgian King Leopold uses courtly language and vocabulary, interspersed with the casual racial slurs of that place and time. In this way, Shawl immerses the reader quickly into the milieu of the story.

Fantasy and magic are prevalent in these stories, always feeling personalized to the characters and themes. The Arthurian magic is quite different than the living doll magic of “Women of the Doll”.

While women of color are centered in most of these stories, as I mentioned, the most notable exception is the Peter Pan pastiche “She Tore”, with a kick-ass Wendy and Tiger Lily confronting an unrepentant Hook who offers a deal that Disney would be proud of.

[Joshua Dysart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had fun with this. The ideas are all fully tilted towards a wonderful anti-colonial, pro-African diaspora awareness, and a few of them are absolutely outstanding. I LOVED "Women of the Doll" and very much enjoyed, "The Tawny Bitch" (though that font - even with its in-story reasoning - drove me bonkers), and a handful of others really sang to me. I did feel like I encountered more stories that were admirable in spirit and tone than they were really interesting, formally or narratively, but I'd be down to read a novel by Nisi Shawl.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of gruesome tales with a few happy exceptions, the Peter Pan story was a riot. A decent collection of shorts from 2003 to 2022.

[Lois · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew this was great

Merged review:

Weird but I truly liked this

[Sugar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love some magical realism in fiction, and this certainly delivers! Some of these are truly remarkable as they come (Women of the Doll and Luisah's Church stand out the most to me) and even the ones that drag a bit are still rather good.

If you like weird fiction, this is an excellent book to sink your mycelic roots in.

[Cameron Frye · Rating 2 out of 5]

the writing style wasn’t for me; it felt a little heavy handed at times and i honestly didn’t end up finishing it. i did quite like the story told in archival letters, but some others didn’t really stand out to me at all.

[Lenahe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Normally I don't like short stories collections, because there's only a few that trully grab me. Well, this is the book that proves me wrong.
My favourites were the ones that gave a twist to well know stories, myths and other tales.

[Elizabeth Barrett Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many good shorts! Ones that stand out for me, Women of the Doll, Cruel Sistah, the Street Worm trio, and I Being Young and Foolish because I’m on an Arthurian Legend kick at the moment.

[David Blaylock · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short sad story.

Merged review:

Story did not grab me.