Bar Fridman-Tell has a BA in art history and an MA in English literature. (She gleefully wrote her thesis about Victorian vampires.) She has worked as a bartender, a bookseller, a translator, and a library assistant. She is currently studying for a master's in library and information sciences, hoping to stay in a library for good. She lives in Toronto with her professor husband and two very fluffy cats. Honeysuckle is her debut novel.
At Lit Hub Fridman-Tell tagged six books that "take a fairy tale and pull one thread loose, to see what happens next, or tip the story on its side and see what new shape emerges." One title on the list:
S. M. Hallow, How To Survive This FairytaleRead about the other titles on the list at Lit Hub.
In How To Survive This Fairy Tale, a novella tiptoeing on the border between fantasy and horror, S. M. Hallow at turns unravels fairytales and stitches them together. Hallow starts with a question: what happens after the fairy tale ends? After Hansel escaped the forest witch, after the hunter let Snow White go, after the six swans turned back into humans (mostly), and their sister proves her innocence. And what would happen if one character, Hans, tripped through all three of these stories, plus a few more?
From this starting point, Hallow tackles subjects such as the line between villain and victim, the possibility of redemption, living in a body that no longer fits who you are, and what a happy ending really looks like in these circumstances. Tears (the good kind) guaranteed.
--Marshal Zeringue
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