Ninetails : nine tales
Call Number
- FICTION MAO (CEN, OSH)
Publication Information
[New York] : Penguin Books, [2024]
Physical Description
270 pages ; 21 cm
Summary
"A debut collection of stories re-imagining the nine-tailed fox spirit of Asian folklore. A fox spirit avenges a teen girl by seducing her abuser. A shapeshifting woman finds herself chased through the woods by fox hunters; meanwhile, an assassination plot called Operation Fox Hunt unfolds against the last Queen of Korea. Chinese migrants hoping to make new lives as 'paper children' in America find their pasts-and their hopes for the future-embodied in the foxes that haunt the harbor in 1900s Angel Island. In the nine tales of Ninetails, acclaimed poet Sally Wen Mao reimagines the fox spirit from Asian folklore-a shapeshifter, shaman, and seductress-as an icon of vengeance, solidarity and liberation. The characters of her stories are varied-from silicone sex dolls who come to life with new purpose, to women whose crushes manifest as stones-but they all reach for a common purpose: to find truth and belonging in a difficult world determined to consider them alien. With the fabulist vibrancy of Carmen Maria Machado, the sinuous world-building of Helen Oyeyemi, and the sensuous feminist rage of Han Kang, Ninetails is both timeless-unearthing a cultural icon whose origins date back over a thousand years-and timely in its contemporary political urgency"--
Contents
- The haunting of Angel Island : Arrival. Love doll ; Beasts of the chase
- The haunting of Angel Island : parts 2-3. Turtle head epidemic ; The fig queen
- The haunting of Angel Island : parts 4-5. A Huxian's guide to seduction revenge immortality ; The girl with flies coming out of her eyes
- The haunting of Angel Island : parts 6-8. Lotus stench ; The crush
- The haunting of Angel Island : departure.