Magic for Beginners [Hardcover]

Kelly Link's fiction is so good it's scary, as her lyrical voice is one of the most unique and singular in literature. Her fantastical stories are inimitable reinventions of familiar genre staples (zombies, ghosts, time travel, fairy tales, and more), filtered through a keen literary eye. The fantasy elements in her stories are always underpinned by a grave reality, be it loss of innocence, coming to grief, or family strife, but not at the expense of a story's humor or levity. Somehow, Link's stories capture both the familiar and the unknown, the horror and the beauty in life. I'm not quite sure how she does it.

Magic for Beginners, Link's second collection, contains some of her most mature and accomplished stories to date. Personal favorites are "Stone Animals," a domestic ghost story that plays with gender stereotypes, "Some Zombie Contingency Plans," an unpredictable, psychological horror story, and the titular novella "Magic For Beginners," a contemporary dark fantasy story, equal parts Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Videodrome, but which ultimately defies description. I don't know if Link will ever evolve into a novelist (and as long as she keeps churning out short fiction, I won't complain), but if she does, I believe "Magic For Beginners" will be identified as a stepping stone to her eventual longer works.

It's actually unfair to single out only a few stories of this 9-story collection, since they are all of high quality (though I'm not too fond of the postmodern stylization over characterization in "The Cannon"). Other gems include "The Hortlak," a hilarious, if somber, post-apocalyptic zombie story, and "Lull," a time-travel story like no other, replete with the devil, cheerleaders, poker parties, and aliens (believe me, it works).

Another surprising element in Link's stories, given their complexity, is their accessibility, as the stories in this collection partake of traditional, page-turning storytelling. But don't get me wrong, her stories are not easy reads (they are fun reads!). Link's best stories, due to their narrative and thematic richness, demand (reward) rereading. But this is hardly a chore, because a Kelly Link story will haunt you, calling out to your waking and sleeping dreams. That's the power a perfect story can have.

Magic for Beginners, to this humble reader, is the finest collection, and arguably the finest book, to be published in 2005.

Books like Magic for Beginners, $24.00 Amazon.com, should be easy to praise. However this second collection of supernatural stories, from author Kelly Link, - while fun to read - makes for a difficult review. She's not a conventional writer and these aren't conventional stories. Ever read a story about a haunted family, and not a haunted house? I'm going to take a stab at summarizing, but frankly, I'm not sure if even I can serve this odd book any justice. It's one of those titles that you must read for yourself. It's been sheer folly trying to review it, but I think I've faithfully captured the basic texture of the book in my efforts here.

Each story hides an element of human chaos; a Russian grandmother with an enchanted handbag dies, a peculiar employee of an all-night convenience store runs away, a haunted family throws one last dinner party, a party crasher obsessed with zombies outsmarts a teenage girl, a witch gives her three children motherly deathbed advice, a man negotiates a divorce with his ghostly wife, the teenage son of a horror writer strives to save a fictional character (in a pirate TV broadcast) from certain death, and an apocalyptic weekend poker party is interrupted by alien visitors.

Grades of A plus (on the Steve-ometer) are given to four specific stories - Stone Animals, The Faery Handbag, The Great Divorce, and The Hortlak. These are the ones I consider as being groundbreaking, the best, the most sincere. Link obviously gave each of these four yarns a little extra-special effort. Each of these stories has a magical dreamlike quality. Stone Animals, originally published in Conjunctions, and soon to appear in the next edition of The Best American Short Stories series, establishes Link as a writer to watch. The other five stories are merely Grade B in my opinion, but with a little more spit and polish, they too might spark your fancy.

In The Faery Handbag, teenager Genevieve faces an unusual predicament. She can't find recently deceased Grandmother Zofia's enchanted handbag. And she must recover it, if she ever hopes to rescue her missing boyfriend, Jake! Each week her search takes her to Boston's Garment District, but frankly, she's not having much luck when we join in. I won't spoil the ending, but the story resembles a lost Aesop's fable. The casual manner in which the author winks at you - as she spins the tale - is really quite appealing. Link had me hooked from the first sly sentence, which reads: I used to go to thrift stores with my friends. Scrabble also figures prominently in this particular story, so that also helps.

Next story? The Hortlak. This one's a real corker. It revolves around Eric, who works the night shift, and Batu, who works the day shift, at the All-Night Convenience store on Ausible Chasm Road near the Canadian border. The two clerks live in the store - they take turns sleeping in the storage closet. Eric has a crush on a girl named Charley that wanders in and out of the store from time to time, but he's slow to act upon it. If it weren't for Batu teaching Charley helpful Turkish phrases whenever she comes in for a Mountain Dew, Eric might have already approached her, but its hard to concentrate on your love life when the undead keep distracting you - when zombies keep trying to engage you, after midnight, in mysterious cashless transactions. Great hook ending here! But what, pray tell, is a Hortlak? In my mind, that's the real million dollar question.

Now that you have a feel for the outlandish nature of Link's work, I encourage you to read Stone Animals, which is a real accomplishment! I dare you to tell me what's going on at the end of this ghost story? If it makes any sense. This flawless piece is ostensibly about faithfulness - the sanctity of marriage - but judging from the manner in which this post-9/11 story is woven, it carries multiple meanings, and works on many submerged levels. Henry and Catherine (husband & wife) have recently navigated a minefield of marital discord, but with two children in tow, and a new baby on the way, they've apparently found a measure of tranquility by relocating to a home somewhere just North of New York City. Or have they? Exactly what happens at the end of this story? Has Henry become unhinged? Has someone else murdered his family? Have Henry and his family actually been dead all along? I'm really not quite sure. Please get back to me, with your own interpretation.

Even though I enjoyed the story Magic for Beginners, from which the book derives its title, I choose not to recommend it highly. It's a clever construct that evokes the exact sort of feelings that Stephen King's children most likely have for their nearly departed dad - I'd guess - but I thought it contained a lot of filler. Though I felt sympathy for the earnest group of teens the story revolved around, I must confess I was hoping for a better denouement. Link left me dangling on the line, at the end, therefore I felt shortchanged. Link might consider placing these particular characters into a full-blown novel, with a better end result.

Really though, the story I'm most enamored of was The Great Divorce, since it delivers the strongest kick. Who on earth (besides Kelly Link?) could come up with a story about a living man and a ghostly woman spawning a trio of phantom children, the mere concept that a mismatched pair like this would then brooch the ugly topic of divorce? Better yet, what was the authoress smoking when she came up with this? This tale has some fantastic imagery, such as a trembling haunted pink bougainvillea, and departed spirits waiting in long orderly lines at Disneyland, their heels resting upon the shoulders of the living amusement park patrons. The final few paragraphs just took my breath away. The last two sentences are priceless! Turn of the screw, indeed!

Since I appreciate Link, I'd recommend she find a better Editor. I've found singular words that should have been plural, close quotes that were omitted, sentences that were missing words, and intact typos within the pages of this book. (see page 219, fourth line, for example) This clutch of errors proved a major distraction while scanning Magic for Beginners, (which must have been written in extreme haste) but don't let the little things that annoyed me dissuade you from pursuing this otherwise charming collection. I sincerely look forward to reading Kelly's third compilation; she's tapped into some vein that's truly otherworldly.

Okay, so it's a silly cliche, but I'm going to use it anyway...Kelly Link is the absolute best writer that you've never heard of. Most people have no idea who she is, our bookstore doesn't even carry her books most of the time, but I think she's utterly brilliant, and she deserves to be better known. She deserves to win the Pulitzer as far as I'm concerned.

The stories in this collection are amazing--warm, witty, profound, laugh-out-loud funny, imaginative, and heartbreaking. The best way to describe her style is that she writes in dream images using dream logic. What I mean is, you know that feeling when you wake up from a vivid dream and you can't recall its chronological narrative format and it doesn't make much logical sense, yet at the same time you can remember vivid images and profound emotions that stem from it? That's exactly what reading a Kelly Link story is like. It's hard to explain precisely what happens in a literal sense, but she's able to make you feel just what she wants you to feel, even when you can't put your finger on why that is. I'm in awe of her ability make her readers feel such depth of emotion through such cryptic and dreamlike imagery.

Take "Lull" for instance, the first story that I read in this collection. It's a weird, complex story about a group of guys playing poker, a phone-sex operator/storyteller, the Devil, a cheerleader, aliens, clones, time travel, and probably a few more things I can't remember. I read it just going along for the ride at first, really having no idea where she was going with it, and then it hit me all at once that what she was really writing about was death and grief and the mourning process. I was overcome with emotion and practically cried throughout the ending.

Another one is "Stone Animals" about a family that moves into a new house that turns out to be "haunted" in a sense. It's a long story, almost a novella, that reads stylistically like a minimalist take on domestic tragicomedy, yet at the same time it's creepy and eerie and almost feels like a regular ghost story, yet there doesn't seem to be any actual ghosts in it. The whole time I felt like I was watching this ordinary suburban family self destruct before my eyes and by the ending it felt like things had gone past the point of no return, yet I can't explain exactly what happened. But it made an impression on me, believe me.

These are just two examples. Other favorites of mine are "The Faery Handbag", "Magic for Beginners" and "The Hortlak" which are all beautifully complex and heartfelt portrayals of the adolescent/young adult experience, love, and the loss of innocence.

If you're at all interested in fantasy, surrealism, experimental fiction, or just plain beautiful writing, please do yourself a favor and check out Kelly Link. Her writing makes the whole world seem like a beautiful place.

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