Fitcher's Brides [Paperback]

Gregory Frost (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates (2002)
• ASIN: B0015MT1AM
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

More About the Author

I'm a writer under the broad umbrella of fantasy literature. That means I'm not speaking of elf quests and swords and magic necessarily, but of things that might fall into the bins marked "High Weird" or "Disturbing," too. I write horror, but not the sort that splatters; rather, the kind that discomfits. Fantasy and horror are means to explore things that sometimes can't be come at head on. Sometimes they're put in play just to amuse. But always to surprise.

I workshop fiction in a number of groups with a good batch of writers whose ranks include (or have included) Judith Berman, Ann Tonsor Zeddies, Karen Joy Fowler, John Kessel, James Patrick Kelly, Kelly Link, Jonathan Lethem, and Nalo Hopkinson. I also know a number of writers who do not workshop and should not workshop. Like anything else, whether or not you want feedback and opinions is matter of knowing yourself.

I teach writing--peripatetically--at Swarthmore College in PA, at Write By The Lake in Madison, WI, at wrtiers' conferences in Pennsylvania, etc. It's a different part of the brain, teaching, and good writers don't necessarily make good teachers, just as the reverse is true.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Brides of Death, November 18, 2004

By 

Kelly (Fantasy Literature) (Columbia, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Fitcher's Brides (Fairy Tale (Tor)) (Paperback)

A widower, with a little help from his cold-hearted new wife, has fallen under the spell of Elias Fitcher, an apocalyptic preacher who predicts the world will end within the year. Packing up all his earthly belongings, and his three daughters--romantic Vernelia, neurotic Amy, and practical, skeptical Kate--he and his wife move to a tiny village in upstate New York to await the end of days. There, the charming, charismatic, and utterly horrifying Fitcher takes a shine to Vernelia, and sweeps her off her feet in a whirlwind courtship.

It says on the very cover that it's a Bluebeard story, so I'm not spoiling much to say that Vernelia goes mysteriously missing, and Fitcher then marries Amy. When Amy, too, vanishes, it's up to Kate to find out what has happened and stop Fitcher's horrible spree. There's a storm brewing, of course, and the plot goes from atmospherically creepy to nail-biting as the storm rises to fever-pitch. I could have sworn I heard thunder when I discovered Kate's middle name, when she stood up to him as no one had previously done, when she raced against time to stop him from adding her to his collection. Does she survive? Read and see.

Gregory Frost here gives us an unforgettable rendition of one of our darkest fairy tales, a heroine to root for, and a truly terrifying villain. An added bonus is Terri Windling's introduction. Her introductions are always a treat, but she's getting even better, as evidenced first by the fascinating one for White as Snow, and now by the essay she wrote for this novel. She points out, most interestingly, that Perrault's famous version blames Bluebeard's murders on his wives' curiosity and disobedience, but that the older version give us heroines, like Kate, who save themselves by their willingness to question authority and look for answers.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fairy tale for grown-ups., August 20, 2003

By 

Bill Kent (Wynnewood, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fitcher's Brides (Fairy Tale Series) (Hardcover)

The Bluebeard legend sliced, diced and transplanted to the 19th century in the "burned-over land," that section of upstate New York from which were born the Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists and other modern religious cults. Frost takes this somewhat forbidding fantasy landscape to the edge of gothic horror for a tale that is really about female empowerment: how long will we suffer from monstrous evil before SOMEBODY fights back? The fight is worth the wait, and the gruesome details leading to it. Clever readers will see that Frost is using the story to analyze why it is that the intolerance and xenophobic hatred that powers the mindless fanaticism of an era that, for all its historical trappings, seems curiously contemporary. For fans of Frost's short but very accomplished body of work, this novel is a definite joy. Frost is writing at the peak of his powers: literate, intelligent fantasy doesn't get much better than this.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yet another grand re-visioning of a classic fairy tale., December 16, 2002

By 

Stephen Richmond "Librarian/Teacher/Reader an... (Newton, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fitcher's Brides (Fairy Tale Series) (Hardcover)

Terri Windling's Fairy Tale Series never disappoints. Author Frost here creates a vivid and accurate, if bleakly creepy milieu for his take on Bluebeard. The millennial fervor of mid-19th century America is fascinating in itself and Frost elucidates as he entertains. His characterizations are apt, although I was at first discomifited by his descriptions of the sexual de-flowering of his three protagonists; eventually, it all fits and is entirely appropriate. The story of Bluebeard has always been an ugly for me and it's no less so in this re-telling. Some very engaging and aptly retro prose.