Kathleen JenningsKirja-arvosteluja

This collection of short stories read as fairy tales, often as a play on well known works and with a truth at its heart. Jennings uses different writing styles, allowing each story to be a surprise, both in content and in structure. The stories are full of remarkable characters and places, but speak to the universal truths: love, freedom, companionship, identity. And lots of birds! I didn’t love every story, but I did love most. Unfortunately, the most difficult story is the first; you may want to visit that one last.

Fairy tale prose, an unreliable narrator, family secrets, and a fully realized, gothic-tinged rural Queensland setting make this debut novella an unmissable work of mythic horror.

Kathleen Jennings's strengths as an author lie primarily in coming up with sharp, unsettling fantasy concepts and drawing them out in vivid detail. The short story is perhaps the ideal length for this - Jennings's novella Flyaway was atmospheric and had striking moments, but the meandering plot left something to be desired.

The stories in this collection often revolve around women who are determined to get what they want at all costs. Many of them draw on fairy tales and folklore, but Jennings manages to find unusual twists that keep the stories fresh. "A Hedge of Yellow Roses" is a take on Sleeping Beauty that features an eternally-young noblewoman gone half-feral in her hundred or more years without human contact, and "Undine Love" mines the Princess and the Frog for a surprising amount of horror and tragedy (though it is also frequently funny). Despite their well-worn origins, none of these stories feel tired or predictable, which is impressive. Other standouts include "Skull and Hyssop", an adventure/mystery with some memorable bits of sailing-related fantasy worldbuilding, and "Not to Be Taken", a portrait of a morally ambiguous woman who gets in over her head with a dangerous man and must come up with a scheme to escape his clutches.

As is usually true of short story collections, not all of the stories are winners, and it's unfortunate that in this case that includes both the opening story (the dense and perhaps overly ornate "Heart of Owl Abbas") and the title story (the eminently forgettable "Kindling"). But on balance, there's more good than bad here, and I would recommend the collection to fans of dark fantasy that leans towards the literary.½

If this had been billed as poetry, my rating would have been higher. I would call this a poem or prose-poem rather than a story. There is no narrative, nor are there any characters. Considered as a poem, it’s not bad, though it’s not my preferred type of poetry. It’s an interesting look at fairy-tales, fairy-tale retellings, and stories generally. But it is not, itself, a story, and it does bill itself as one - hence my rating: Not unpleasant to read, but not a good or even average story. The cover is lovely.½

This debut collection of twelve short stories is by Kathleen Jennings who—according to her bio—has won the British Fantasy and Ditmar awards for her writing. These stories fit into the genres of fantasy, folklore, and fairy tale. The quality of these stories is uneven: I almost gave up after the first story The Heart of Owl Abbas when I became overwhelmed by her over-descriptive/thesaurus driven prose. I did eventually give up and moved onto her second story, Skull and Hyssop, which was much more enjoyable.

Fantasy is not a genre I usually read, so I am not sure if I am the right person to review this book. I like a good story, but was disappointed in the overall quality of those in this anthology.

I would like to thank LibraryThing and Small Beer Press for the opportunity to read and review this collection.

This is an okay book. Like lots of short story collections, it's a bit hit or miss. I found the first few stories to be harder to get into, and I almost put the book down - but I liked the last few a lot more. Fans of fantasy and magical realism might want to give this one a try.

A collection of fantasy stories of various kinds, many with strange echos of fairy tales. Some of these I quite liked, others left me kind of cold. Some have rather lovely prose, but my overarching impression is of a sort of off-kilter quality that is hard to put my finger on, but that left me feeling a bit off-balance. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, by any means, but in this case, while it was often genuinely interesting to read, I can't say it entirely worked for me.½

Like most short stories collection, many people are going to find this collection hit and miss. One thing that cannot be denied however, is Jennings ability and skill with language. Her prose is rich and lush. It reminds one of Carter and Byatt. The stand out story is "A Hedge of Yellow Roses". This is an elegant retelling of Sleeping Beauty that touches on passages of times, problems with curses, gender roles, and letting go. It is closely followed by "On Tangled Streets" which is inspired by a rather famous Greek myth but yet points to the problems and issues that can exist in cities and how we see people that come from the wrong side. "On Pepper Creek" also stands out because of the use of Old World vs New World travel and a boggart. The stories are dark and tread that fine line between dark fantasy and horror (though whether or not there is truly a line is simply a matter of taste).

Kindling: Stories is a collection of wonderful tales, as in “wonder” “full.” Kathleen Jennings’ fables and folklore are filled with magical birds, a bogart, undines. Brave young women and men who persist when all seems lost, and come to indeterminate endings.

Jennings’ words create illusions within the stories; long ago and far away entrances the reader with mysterious paths, briar enclosures, forests of dread. Her lyrical, rich prose hits the perfect balance of description and narrative.

The sea here was nothing like Angel had described . . . . What Annie saw was huger than despair, big enough to hold every lost thing. Purple and green, it wrinkled and shifted like a cow twitching its hide to shake off flies. . . . Annie worked her way down it, pressing close to the cliff, down and down through the roar of the waves, until she stumbled into thick sand. It sank whispering beneath her boots and slipped silkily in through the holes in the leather.

Clearly, Jennings is a consummate writer. These stories have been previously published, like the highly regarded “Undine Love” and “The Heart of Owl Abbas.” Flyaway, her first novel, is a 2021 World Fantasy Award finalist and a 2020 Crawford Award finalist. Give yourself a real treat and walk within her enchantments.

I received a copy of this book from Small Beer Press. This is an honest review.

Australian gothic, the first I've read. There are moldering villages, remains of a colonial past, supernatural creatures, stories inside stories, with a narrator, Bettina Scott, nineteen and maybe an innocent, all the gothic elements.

It was not an easy story for me to get into, so many places and people and plants and animals to know from the very first. I should have taken notes instead of thumbing back and forth trying to keep track of all the mysterious parts. But language and plot kept me reading away until it began to make sense, sense in its own wild, gothic sort of way.

This short novel tells more than one story, all of them connected, in well chosen words, making it a work of perfect length. And the cover illustration is done by Jennings herself. She is a writer, and an artist, full of talent.
.

We tend to associate dark fiction with “literal” darkness – with shadows, haunted houses, twilight apparitions and “things that go bump in the night”. Similarly, the “North”, with its long winter nights and its mythology of fairies, trolls and diverse monsters, seems more attuned to conventional supernatural fiction than the Southern Hemisphere.

But just as Ari Aster’s movie Midsommar showed us that there can be dark horror in the unending daylight of a Nordic summer, Kathleen Jennings’ beguiling debut Flyway successfully challenges tradition by transplanting tropes of Gothic, fantasy and supernatural fiction to an Australian context.

The novel(la) is set in a small rural settlement in Western Queensland in the recent past – early to mid-nineties, judging by the references to early internet and mobile phones. The main storyline is narrated by nineteen-year-old Bettina Scott, although between each chapter there are short interludes – fairytale-like stories-within-stories – narrated by other characters. Bettina, we learn, was a feisty teenager, but since the sudden disappearance of her father and two brothers a few years back, she has lived a secluded life under the zealous protection of her mother Nerida. One day, she receives a mysterious message which suggests that her brothers might still be alive. With the help of two old friends, Gary and Trish, she sets out on a modern-day quest, to find her brothers and, in the process, discover hidden truths about her family.

Admittedly, Flyaway takes some time getting into. Jennings does not spell out things for the reader and the first few chapters of the novel felt somewhat disorienting. However, the narrative is well worth the initial effort and as things start falling into place, it gets increasingly gripping. A small hint… it helps to keep some notes about the different characters and the families they belong to – as in any self-respecting Gothic work, surnames are more than just identifiers…

A thrilling blend of Gothic mystery, modern fairytale and folk horror, Kathleen Jennings’ Flyaway proves that a cattle town in Australia can be as atmospheric and uncanny a setting as the magical forests of the North.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2020/04/flyaway-by-kathleen-jennings.html

Once there was a village where a couple sought approval for their marriage from a stag with antlers adorned with golden rings. In this tiny village, the approval of the stag must be won; a ring perhaps wrested from his antlers.

No one knew where the rings had come from, but theories abounded. Perhaps they fell from a tree deep in the forest. Or the gentlefolk beyond the forest threw them at the stag’s antlers. Sadly, some speculated that those wishing to divorce made payment with a golden ring hung on the stag’s antler while others surmised they’d been dug up from graves.

Perhaps they simply grew from the antlers; perhaps the stag was made of living gold.

George-the-Wolf desired the hand of Red Elsie, but she continually refused him. So George-the-Wolf headed off into the forest but was unable to catch the stag. It was then that he hatched his terrible plot.

What will George-the-Wolf do? Will it win him the hand of the woman he wishes to marry?

=========

With a grim and gruesome portion, this fairy tale is part Aesop, part brothers Grimm. Creepy, dark, and disturbing, this Tor short story is both magical and unsettling. While the characters behave in predictable fashion, the unfolding story manages a surprise or two for the reader.

Recommended.

We tend to associate dark fiction with “literal” darkness – with shadows, haunted houses, twilight apparitions and “things that go bump in the night”. Similarly, the “North”, with its long winter nights and its mythology of fairies, trolls and diverse monsters, seems more attuned to conventional supernatural fiction than the Southern Hemisphere.

But just as Ari Aster’s movie Midsommar showed us that there can be dark horror in the unending daylight of a Nordic summer, Kathleen Jennings’ beguiling debut Flyway successfully challenges tradition by transplanting tropes of Gothic, fantasy and supernatural fiction to an Australian context.

The novel(la) is set in a small rural settlement in Western Queensland in the recent past – early to mid-nineties, judging by the references to early internet and mobile phones. The main storyline is narrated by nineteen-year-old Bettina Scott, although between each chapter there are short interludes – fairytale-like stories-within-stories – narrated by other characters. Bettina, we learn, was a feisty teenager, but since the sudden disappearance of her father and two brothers a few years back, she has lived a secluded life under the zealous protection of her mother Nerida. One day, she receives a mysterious message which suggests that her brothers might still be alive. With the help of two old friends, Gary and Trish, she sets out on a modern-day quest, to find her brothers and, in the process, discover hidden truths about her family.

Admittedly, Flyaway takes some time getting into. Jennings does not spell out things for the reader and the first few chapters of the novel felt somewhat disorienting. However, the narrative is well worth the initial effort and as things start falling into place, it gets increasingly gripping. A small hint… it helps to keep some notes about the different characters and the families they belong to – as in any self-respecting Gothic work, surnames are more than just identifiers…

A thrilling blend of Gothic mystery, modern fairytale and folk horror, Kathleen Jennings’ Flyaway proves that a cattle town in Australia can be as atmospheric and uncanny a setting as the magical forests of the North.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2020/04/flyaway-by-kathleen-jennings.html

Parts of this book, I quite liked: the atmospheric descriptions; the intermittent fairy tales; the spooky supernatural creatures. Unfortunately, the characters themselves were hard to connect to, especially Bettina, and overall the plot is rather confusing. I think this is one of those books that you either fall in love with, or you just don't get it. Unfortunately I didn't really get it.

Intertwined multileveled stories told in dazzling prose.

This is a lovely book. The cover is just gorgeous. The setting of a tiny, out-of-time town in the middle of nowhere, Australia, is well drawn and seems perfect for this fanciful folkloric story. Bettina (Tina) is a prim, rather mousy young woman who lives alone with her fragile but domineering mother. One afternoon she finds a word, "Monsters," scrawled on her fence and a strange note in her mailbox, which sends on a quest to find her missing brothers. Turns out, she hasn't always been this mousy, and she can't really remember a lot of what happened before they went missing, or the night her father left. Her story is interspersed with other stories narrated by other characters, many drawing from folk and fairy tales--a shapeshifting creature, a Pied Piper-type story, a boy who made three wishes--that all come together at the end. I enjoyed the poetic writing, but sometimes I felt somewhat confused about who all the characters were and what were their family histories, which were all important; the lovely writing was not always as clear as I'd like. I suspect this short book would benefit greatly from a second reading.

This is an incredibly written book. Beautiful prose, great story, and a great plot. The story is small, encompassing a small Australian Town. Fairy tales stories weave in and out - allusions to Sleeping Beauty, The Pied Piper, even The Six Swans are mentioned. However, the fairy tales are hidden, hiding underneath the landscape of this town.

An absolutely lovely book, and I hope there is more stories coming from this author.

What a whimsical and enchanting book this is! I expected a fantasy novel filled with folklore but this is so much more. Don't get me wrong; this book is filled with fantasy and folklore but there are elements of horror as well. The tale is told in the style of a story teller sitting by a campfire where the words weave into a wondrous world where all is not what it seems.
A young woman living in a small town in Western Queensland, Australia receives a cryptic note from one of her brothers. Brothers who mysteriously disappeared around the time that her father left. The note compels Bettina on a search for the truth. A heartrending quest where Bettina faces ethereal animals, disappearing schools, and strange monsters to learn the unsettling truth.
The writing reminds me of Shirley Jackson's works and is beautifully poetic. This is one novel I do plan to read again because there is so much to absorb and I think it is one of those novels where you learn something new each time you read it again.

After she receives a mysterious note, nineteen year old Bettina flouts her mother’s rules for ladylike behaviour and embarks on a roadtrip with a couple of forgotten friends in search of her brothers, who disappeared three years ago.

I loved some of the descriptions, especially seeing a rural Australian setting for this sort of fantasy. Jennings creates a wonderfully eerie atmosphere and the mystery kept me reading. However, the folktale parts of the story are dark, uncomfortably so.

Very successfully Gothic, just ultimately not really my brand of Gothic.

“You coward, Tina!” he shouted, voice cracking. I knew he would not follow. Mother had forbidden him the yard, back when my brothers left. Damsons respect fences.
Coward. My hands were shaking. “Hush,” I whispered to myself, until they stilled, and my thoughts were quiet once more. [...] Caution was better than bravery, I reminded myself. A civilised, bone-china soul knows, as a bird does, that a heavy-footed, shouting man is a thing to be fled.
The garage was quiet, except for the scrape and slide of noisy miner and magpie claws on the iron roof, the spreading patterns of hydrangea-blue shadows, and the perennial half-whispers in the trees that did not belong to any breeze or beast I had ever seen.½

I picked this up on a whim in the 'New Arrivals' section on a book buying spree. I was drawn to the beautiful illustrations, the fact that it was a contemporary Australian gothic folklore tale and that it had Shirley Jackson vibes. It ticked all the boxes.

However, sadly this novella just didn't do it for me. I'm drawn to rich, complex, character driven stories and unfortunately this lacked all of those things (especially when the protagonist's personality was reminiscent of a broom). This was quite a difficult read, it was slow going and it did put me in a reading slump. The book does pick up after the first couple of chapters and it does contain some beautifully written prose which kept me turning the pages.

I wish this was fleshed out a bit more (at least another 100 pages) as it's an interesting tale. There's certainly something special and unique about it but overall it just felt 'unfinished' and left me feeling unsatisfied :(

Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings is a novella from an Australian author whose short fiction I have previously enjoyed. She is, perhaps, most well-known for her artwork, including book covers such as the one for Flyaway, among others.

Going through the tags for this review, I couldn't not include "Australian gothic". This book is a tangle of fairytales brought by settlers into the unique Australian landscape, all of them twisted and variously creepy. Flyaway is, above all, a story composed of many other stories, told as flashbacks or asides. The layers are slowly peeled back as our unreliable narrator, Bettina Scott, slowly learns more of her recent past and starts to realise what she's forgotten.

The fact that part of the story is told as Bettina's memories unfurl means that we come at the main story — for lack of a better term, I mean the story most important to Bettina — from an oblique angle. We know something strange has happened, but the pieces don't come together until very close to the end. But in the meantime, Jennings keeps the reader entertained and/or horrified with the extra stories peppered throughout the narrative.

I recommend Flyaway to readers who like weird narratives and who don't mind feeling creeped out by the bush or western Queensland. I think non-Australian readers will also find much to connect with in this book, since a lot of the fairytales are recognisably based on European folklore, despite the strong presence of the Australian landscape in the book.

4 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog.

Written by Australian Kathleen Jennings, Flyaway is a novella full of stories within stories, delivered in a shroud of myth, legend, folklore and superstition that kept me guessing.

Our protagonist Bettina has a mysterious past and she's determined to find out what happened to her brothers - and herself - several years ago.

Set in outback Australia, the beautiful writing, evocative descriptions and imagery brought the once familiar landscape to life in a new and eerie light. The rural area was both peaceful and menacing, the town a haven for a close knit community as well as a place seething under the surface with fear and mistrust.

A combination of urban fantasy and magical realism, Flyaway is full of mysterious disappearances, creatures that lurk in the shadows and a slight otherness that you can never quite put your finger on.

The structure, lyrical prose and fairytale elements reminded me a great deal of The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. And just like that book, I enjoyed the writing, the world building and stories within stories, but I was never confident of maintaining a full and clear picture of what was actually happening at any given time.

Presented with an exquisite cover design and french flaps, Flyaway is a gothic Australian fairytale that might just penetrate the pages into your subconscious.

After letting this book settle in my mind, I realised I feel the same way about this as I do The Starless Sea. I loved it but there were definitely elements of reader confusion and matters unresolved. For instance, I wanted to learn more about Bettina's mother and her own transformation during the intervening years.

Nevertheless, Flyaway is a smashing literary debut by Kathleen Jennings and I'm sure awards will follow.

* Copy courtesy of Pan Macmillan *