EnchantmentNew and Selected Stories
by Thaisa Frank
Paperback, 320 pages
Published July 10th 2012 by Counterpoint
Premise:
The short fiction of Thaisa Frank has captivated readers for two decades, and now many of those pieces are collected in one volume, along with several new stories. In the title story, a lonely mother and housewife orders an enchanted man from a website called The Wondrous Traveler, who arrives with instructions for use and a list of frequently asked questions about enchantment. In �Thread,” two circus performers who pass through the eye of a needle become undone by a complicated love triangle. In �Henna,” a young writing teacher must contend with an exotic student who will not write, her hands covered in dye and her fingers �sprouting innumerable gardens.” And in �The Loneliness of the Midwestern Vampire,” the undead descend upon the heartland of the country and become accustomed to its friendlier way of life, attending barn raisings and feasting on cattle in an attempt to normalize their darker passions.
These are vibrant, compelling stories that examine the distance between imagination and reality, and how characters bridge that gap in their attempt to reach one another.
I am very happy to welcome Thaisa Frank to Colorimetry!! This collection of stories is unlike any I've run into. For one, there are little two-pagers with "small, jeweled worlds of wonder" just as the back cover raves. These stories come from a unique perspective, catching me off guard. I find myself snorting or laughing or gasping outloud (since I was graciously given a copy to enjoy for this post - thank you!!) It's perfect for that odd moment when my imagination needs a bit of a jolt. Only I shake my head and pick another story to read... and then another! If you don't believe me, read the excerpt at the end of this post. A strange mail order delivery... "mist twice a day". Lol. Who thinks up this stuff?! I give you... Thaisa Frank...
When readers ask
me where my stories come from, I have to explain that the imagination is
mysterious to me. I never know where the imagination begins or ends because the
seeds of my stories have a “given” quality and I can’t make them happen. It’s
as though there’s a pneumatic tube of the imagination and I hang out there when
other writers are occupied so I get weird and cryptic assignments: It could be
a title, like The Loneliness of the Midwestern Vampire. Or the image of
a girl with feet that can see. If I play with the assignment long enough,
characters appear and they make the image or title earthbound. It interests me
most when my characters are bound by the laws of gravity and deal with an
ordinary world. Everything in this world is slightly tilted; but the characters
still have to keep appointments and worry about their families. You might say
that real time and space have been invaded by one alien thing–a Midwestern
vampire, a man who meets an angel who has lived his life.
It sometimes
takes me a long time to find the link between the image or title and characters
who are grounded in the mundane world. For example, The Loneliness of the Midwestern Vampire started with only a title.
The title wouldn’t let go of me. But all I had was a first sentence: Tonight he will fly for human blood. I sat with the sentence for a long time until
a judge in the small Midwestern town showed up and began to bother the vampire
about getting citizenship. Then I knew that he had to bend to life in the
heartlands and this was not the usual vampire story.
In Enchantment, a child has too many
mothers to remember, a man is introduced to an angel, and two circus-performers
turn themselves into piece of two-ply thread to go through the eye of a needle.
But not all of my stories are triggered by surreal images. I’m also fascinated
by people, relationships and obsessions. Enchantment has a story about a
character who wants to get a piercing (I did all my research online!), a woman
who visits an old boyfriend, a cat that acts as a comforter, and two people who
think they are soul mates. It also has two semi-autobiographical novellas with
roots in my own life. These were hard stories to write because I had to invent
and surprise myself to discover a universal element (Once more the use of the
imagination!). After I finished, I felt as if I’d dived into a shipwreck and
come up having lived a slightly different life.
Whether I write about what’s apparently “real,” or something more
surrealistic, I have to feel captivated and enchanted myself or I don’t
feel motivated to write the story. As a kid I had a viewer that held discs so
you could look inside and see three-dimensional scenes. I remember looking at
Little Red Riding Hood, poised in the dark forest with her basket. I could feel
the quiet of the woods and she seemed real, alive in another realm. I wanted to
find a way to reach her. So when I talk about feeling enchanted, I’m talking
about a feeling that started when I was very young. Perhaps all resonance to
fantasy and what seems impossible happens when we’re young. If this is the
case, part of fantasy fiction isn’t an escape at all, but a return to a time
when we dreamt and imagined more freely.
The title story
in Enchantment began when I had an image of a woman on her porch getting
a UPS delivery of an enchanted man she’d ordered from an online site. He came
from a castle in England along with instructions. But where was the grounding? Where were the
other characters? Read the excerpt
below to see if you can guess. Or buy Enchantment
and find out!
About the Author:
Thaisa Frank grew up in the Midwest and the Bronx, the granddaughter of a Presbyterian theologian and a Rumanian Chassid, who consulted each other about Aramaic texts. Her fiction, sometimes characterized as “domestic magical realism,” draws on a bi-cultural childhood, in which she lived in a sedate suburb of Illinois for two-thirds of the year and the colorful, immigrant world of New York for the remaining third. In her stories a child has too many mothers to remember, a woman orders an enchanted man from a mail-order catalogue, a circus performer has feet that can see, and a lonely vampire adjusts to life the heartlands. Her novellas are about the journey of a daughter and her parents.
Thaisa wrote her first story when she was eight—an “unremarkable story, except it made me feel connected to a vast world, far beyond my family.” She majored in philosophy of science and perfected her writing privately, turning down fellowships and working as a copy-editor, ghost-writer, and psychotherapist. One interviewer has claimed she once gave psychic readings, but this was only a rumor, started by one of her characters.
Thaisa wrote her first story when she was eight—an “unremarkable story, except it made me feel connected to a vast world, far beyond my family.” She majored in philosophy of science and perfected her writing privately, turning down fellowships and working as a copy-editor, ghost-writer, and psychotherapist. One interviewer has claimed she once gave psychic readings, but this was only a rumor, started by one of her characters.
Read more of Thaisa's published stories and accomplishments on her Website.
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She was able to open the box as soon as the shipping company
left because the children were still in school. He was bundled in bubble-wrap
like a mummy, and when the wrappings came off, he looked just like the
catalogue promised: He had dark velvet britches, a green jerkin, and a blouse
with billowing sleeves. His blond hair fell across his face and he was handsome
in spite of an overbite. A nimbus of light floated around him.
There was a square of cream-colored paper tied to the bubble
wrap with a black velvet ribbon: Hello, it said, My name is Lars and I come
from an undisclosed castle in England. If you follow the instructions, I am
yours forever:
Mist me twice a day.
Do not probe,
fondle, or startle me.
Keep me in low
light.
Never kiss me
anywhere.
Keep me hidden from
your family.
It was sent courtesy of the online mail order house called The Wondrous Traveler and before she
decided it was a general message sent to everyone, she was unnerved to think
that an online mail order house knew she had a family. Even so, it magnified
her fear that a pervasive consciousness recorded everything she bought online,
including her copy of The Secrets of
NASA, which she’d been amazed she could order although she had only wanted
to see pictures and if she was ever asked would say the same about Lars:
Photographers could justify almost anything.
Small children with their mothers were riding
lavender-colored plastic bicycles on the sidewalk and a few mothers waved. She
shut the front door and dragged Lars and his box to her studio, a small room
next to the living room. It was a hodge-podge of computers, digital cameras,
tripods, various cameras, barely-used developing trays and chemicals. The space was so cluttered and the box so
long, she was afraid it might look like a casket. But once she put it in front
of her worktable, it looked like a shipping crate. Thank god she still had
blackout curtains. She put them up and looked at Lars.
His body emanated
light--a little like marsh light—and this cast the room in an underwater haze
so objects went in and out of focus. She could see a glowing blanket,
phosphorescent papers, an illuminated wastebasket. According to the catalogue,
enchanted people accrued this light because they hadn’t done anything for at
least one hundred years. The catalogue said this was the same people consumed
every day—lavishly, unthinkingly, so by the time they went to sleep it was all
used up. Now and then one could see a
nimbus around babies when they were sleeping.
When she confirmed her order by phone
they had explained about the light all over again. There were no animated
voices. And the real voices had been kind. What color hair did she want? She
chose blond. What country would she like? She chose England.
