Sister Emily's Lightship and Other Stories [Paperback]

Jane Yolen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 11, 2001

Sister Emily's Lightship and Other Stories is Jane Yolen's first collection of short stories written for adults. It includes the award-winning title story, as well as three new, never-before published, works.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As author, poet, and editor, Jane Yolen has published more than 150 books and has won two Nebula Awards, the Caldecott Medal, the World Fantasy Award, the Rhysling Award, the Daedalus Award, the Kerlan Award, and the Academy of American Poets Prize. She has written one of the 20th century's greatest high-fantasy series, the Chronicles of Great Alta (Sister Light, Sister Dark, White Jenna, and The One-Armed Queen). Her first collection of short fiction for adults is Sister Emily's Lightship and Other Stories. It assembles 28 stories, three of which are original to this volume, many of which take the form of folk or fairy tales, and all of which are excellent. Sometimes dark, sometimes humorous, the stories are always beautifully written, sharp, and wise.

"Snow in Summer" portrays a modern, Appalachian Snow White with a fringe-Fundamentalist snake-handling stepmother. "Granny Rumple" reveals the grim origin of Rumplestiltskin. A prequel to the Chronicles of Great Alta, "Blood Sister" explores both love and the nature of narrative. In "The Gift of the Magicians, with Apologies to You Know Who," Beauty and the Beast meet with a horrifically suitable O. Henry twist. The Nebula Award winning "Lost Girls" revisits Peter Pan's Neverland with a feminist slant. "Dick W. and His Pussy; or, Tess and Her Adequate Dick" is an amusingly naughty retold fairy tale. In the Nebula Award winner "Sister Emily's Lightship," the poet Emily Dickinson finds a strange and otherworldly inspiration. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Although Yolen (The One-Armed Queen) has published a great deal of acclaimed SF and fantasy (and children's fiction), this is her first collection of genre stories for adultsAand it has been worth the wait. Three of the 28 entries here are new, and all draw deeply from themes of justice and independence, while typically spurning traditional sentimentality in favor of clear-eyed, sometimes grim realism. Yolen has a particular knack for redaction, finding new resonance by retelling old folk stories from novel points of view. The Nebula-winning "Lost Girls," for example, turns the familiar story of Peter Pan into a feminist revolt. The revisionist Snow White of "Snow in Summer" defeats her wicked, snake-handling stepmother with her own witsAno need for any prince. The ignorance of anti-Semitism brings tragedy to characters in "Granny Rumple" and "Sister Death." Meanwhile, "The Gift of the Magicians, with Apologies to You Know Who" merges O. Henry's Christmas classic with a cautionary tale of Beauty and the Beast. Feuding mobsters get more than they bargained for in "Under the Hill," which Yolen playfully describes as "Damon Runyon meets the elves." "Blood Sister," "The Traveler and the Tale" and "Speaking to the Wind" echo older themes from Ursula Le Guin's work, but the powerful title story, which also won a Nebula, closes this collection on high notes of originality, creativity and hope. As Yolen writes, "Stories are not just recordings. They are prophecies. They are dreams. And... we humans build the future on such dreams." (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (August 11, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312875231
• ISBN-13: 978-0312875237
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born and raised in New York City, Jane Yolen now lives in Hatfield, Massachusetts. She attended Smith College and received her master's degree in education from the University of Massachusetts. The distinguished author of more than 170 books, Jane Yolen is a person of many talents. When she is not writing, Yolen composes songs, is a professional storyteller on the stage, and is the busy wife of a university professor, the mother of three grown children, and a grandmother. Active in several organizations, Yolen has been on the Board of Directors of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, was president of the Science Fiction Writers of America from 1986 to 1988, is on the editorial board of several magazines, and was a founding member of the Western New England Storytellers Guild, the Western Massachusetts Illustrators Guild, and the Bay State Writers Guild. For twenty years, she ran a monthly writer's workshop for new children's book authors. In 1980, when Yolen was awarded an honorary Doctor of Law degree by Our Lady of the Elms College in Chicopee, Massachusetts, the citation recognized that "throughout her writing career she has remained true to her primary source of inspiration--folk culture." Folklore is the "perfect second skin," writes Yolen. "From under its hide, we can see all the shimmering, shadowy uncertainties of the world." Folklore, she believes, is the universal human language, a language that children instinctively feel in their hearts. All of Yolen's stories and poems are somehow rooted in her sense of family and self. The Emperor and the Kite, which was a Caldecott Honor Book in 1983 for its intricate papercut illustrations by Ed Young, was based on Yolen's relationship with her late father, who was an international kite-flying champion. Owl Moon, winner of the 1988 Caldecott Medal for John Schoenherr's exquisite watercolors, was inspired by her husband's interest in birding. Yolen's graceful rhythms and outrageous rhymes have been gathered in numerous collections. She has earned many awards over the years: the Regina Medal, the Kerlan Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Society of Children's Book Writers Award, the Mythopoetic Society's Aslan Award, the Christopher Medal, the Boy's Club Jr. Book Award, the Garden State Children's Book Award, the Daedalus Award, a number of Parents' Choice Magazine Awards, and many more. Her books and stories have been translated into Japanese, French, Spanish, Chinese, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Afrikaans, !Xhosa, Portuguese, and Braille. With a versatility that has led her to be called "America's Hans Christian Andersen," Yolen, the child of two writers, is a gifted and natural storyteller. Perhaps the best explanation for her outstanding accomplishments comes from Jane Yolen herself: "I don't care whether the story is real or fantastical. I tell the story that needs to be told."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential collection for lovers of fantasy and fairy tales, July 25, 2001

By 

Joy Fleisig (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sister Emily's Lightship and Other Stories (Paperback)

I have been an admirer of Jane Yolen for many years, and consider her to be perhaps the finest fantasist in America today. This collection brings together 29 of her wonderful short stories, 3 published here for the first time. Having read a number of these stories in various science fiction and fantasy magazines, I am delighted to see them all together in book form.

One of the central themes that runs throughout this collection, and indeed through much of Yolen's other work (namely 'The Books of Great Alta'), is how the art of storytelling shapes both the teller and society, and vice versa. In 'The Traveler and the Tale', for example, a storyteller from the future travels back to medieval France in order to insert the fairy tale 'Dinner in an Eggshell' into the cultural mythos. In doing this, she believes she will warn of and prevent a take over by froglike aliens in her own time. However, her very act of temporal interference produces surprising cultural - and personal - transformations. In 'Salvage' a true SF story as opposed to a fantasy tale, aliens assimilate our poetry from a human captive and use it to enrich their own; they `digest' our concepts and poetical forms, namely haiku. In 'The Singer and the Song', a young prince finds out that the two can be entirely different things when his favorite musician joins the rebellion that leads to the prince's execution. Perhaps best of all is the title story, where Emily Dickinson is inspired to write a lifetime's worth of poetry by her meeting with an alien. Having found Dickinson's poetry to be, well, otherworldly, I found this very appropriate. I should also commend Yolen for the depth of her research into Dickinson's life and work, and indeed for giving the story the feel of one of her poems. I will definitely investigate Dickinson's poetry further thanks to Yolen. Most of the stories here are fairy tales told from a more modern, mostly feminist point of view. 'Snow in Summer' has a fiesty Appalachian heroine who finds a very simple way to a happy ending. In 'Lost Girls', which won the Nebula Award, a labor lawyer's daughter organizes the `Wendys' of Neverland in a strike against the injustices of Peter and the other lost boys. `The Thirteenth Fey' is a retelling of `Sleeping Beauty' from the point of view of the fairy who curses the princess - accidentally, not maliciously. In doing so, she may free her family from virtual enslavement to the very unlikeable royals. I quite liked this family of fey, who also feature in `Dusty Loves' and `The Uncorking of Uncle Finn', especially their wonderful library of books from the past, present, and future, and it's a pity that Yolen hasn't written any more stories featuring them. `A Ghost of an Affair' is a tender love story between an American jeweler and a Scottish silversmith who died 100 years before she was born. She does get a happy ending, but not the one she expected, and it takes work and time to achieve.

Yolen is also unafraid to explore the darker side of many of the original fairy tales. 'Allerleiruah' makes no secret of the incest at the heart of many seemingly innocent princess stories. In 'Granny Rumple', which is my favorite story of the whole collection, Yolen turns around the original 'Rumplestiltskin' tale (which she convinces me is an anti-Semitic allegory) quite shockingly and shows us who the true moral center of this tale is. Yet she also shows a fine sense of humor. We have here an extremely raunchy version of 'Dick Whittington and His Cat' with some great puns. In 'The Gift of the Magicians, With Apologies to You-Know-Who', Yolen mixes `Beauty and the Beast' with the famous O. Henry story `The Gift of the Magi', and the result is a hilarious surprise ending worthy of that great master. She skewers fundamentalist fanatics in `Creationism, An Illustrated Lecture in Two Parts', which is dedicated to Salman Rushdie. Also very funny is `Under the Hill' in which a fairy is forced to work for a two-bit mob boss.

The stories also are inspired by other cultures and mythologies.. 'Sister Death' is about Lilith, who according to Jewish folklore is the first mate of Adam who defied him and was thrown out of the Garden of Eden. I admit I prefer the Lilith-as-defiant-feminist-icon to the more traditional (if sympathetic) demoness shown here, but I still liked this story. Greek mythology is explored in `Sun/Flight' (where Icarus survives his famous flight but never learns from his mistakes) and in `The Sleep of Trees' (where a dryad makes love to a movie star she thinks is a god). `Journey into the Dark' and 'Words of Power' take place in Native American millieus. And of course, Yolen returns to her own mythology in `Blood Sister', a prequel to `The Books of Great Alta', where Jenna's mother Selna is devastated by the loss of her childhood friend after her friend calls up her dark sister. Frankly, this explains a lot in the book - both Selna's strained relationship with Marjo and the insistence of the priestess on separating Jenna and Pynt, but even if you haven't read it (and you should) the story works marvelously on its own. And there are several other fine stories here, if not as instantly memorable as the ones I've discussed.

In a delightful afterword, Yolen explains much of her inspiration (or what she thinks she remembers!) for these stories. Most importantly, she reveals the all-powerful magic word so that other writers can come up with ideas - BIC (Butt In Chair!). Of course, Yolen not only HAS many good ideas, she has the grace and skill to turn them into gold. Reading Yolen's stories can help teach you the craft needed to write your own, and I strongly recommend this collection to anyone who wants to write fantasy as well as read it.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really great!!, August 10, 2000

By 

Stephanie Zuercher "book nerd" (Berea, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sister Emily's Lightship and Other Stories (Hardcover)

I love Jane Yolen, anyways, and her previous short story collections are amazing. She writes so poetically . . . but I have to admit, my favorite story in the bunch was "Tess and her Adequate Dick; or Dick W. and his Pussy", which was a rather bawdy retelling of a completely innocent fairy tale. Laden with double-entendres, silly puns (Dick lives by a pier, and "after much pier counseling" took the name of the pier -- "Whittington Pier" -- as his own), and other things one does not expect from Jane Yolen . . . She said so, herself, in her afterword, but her notes about the first public recitation of this story are hilarious. Much recommended, provided you have an odd sense of humor . . . and if you don't, there are plenty other stories in this book, one of which must suit your tastes . . .

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty, surprising, fresh, March 16, 2002

By 

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

This review is from: Sister Emily's Lightship and Other Stories (Paperback)

Jane Yolen never seems to write a bad story. Anything I've ever read by her, I've liked. This collection is no exception. With killer wit and straightforward prose, Yolen playes around with Emily Dickinson, fairy tales, and anything else that strikes her fancy.

The essential element in each of these stories is a big twist, a completely new look at something we had previously taken for granted. We assume certain things, and Yolen challenges our assumptions. What if Emily Dickinson's otherworldly poetry was just that--inspired by a joyride through outer space? What if the thirteenth fairy cursed the princess by accident; what if Snow White knew better than to let strangers into her cottage; what if Rumplestiltskin was an unjustly maligned Jewish moneylender; what if the girls in Peter Pan's hideaway got sick of playing housewife? The result is a wonderful collection of stories where you're never sure what the ending will be, but you can't wait to find out.

An added bonus--at the end she reminisces about the making of each story, the idea that got each one started. I love it when authors tell the stories behind the stories.