Customer Reviews

Stepmother (Coover, Robert)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a fairy tale for adults, with all the elements of those tales you knew as children, but more. The book is an easy read, entertaining, and only long enough for a short afternoon or evening. The content, illustrations, and binding guarantee that it will be parked on your library shelf. It's a great introduction to Coover, and aptly demonstrates why he will, in my opinion, gain a rightful place among our country's great authors.

Though Coover is undeniably a talented writer, he decides to take a very well-worn path for this book. It's a deconstructed fairy tale, one of approximately 18 billion, and the themes are familiar. Yes, the old stories were often appallingly misogynist and affirmed rigid patriarchal values, including a distrust of the other and the outsider. Yes, this was bad. Coover scores some points for not completely inverting everything- the witches aren't quite innocent, just no more brutal than everyone else- but the whole story is pretty one-note and forgettable. It offers nothing new, it just deconstructs the old, and without offering real change it's simply a grim and ugly affair.

Taking only the scintillating, perverted elements and adding a dark, unbounded hatred for all that is "church" this author's treatment of every story hinted at in this text is without feeling or imagination. Salman Rushdie's review that this work occupies a place of honor is an accurate gauge of his lack of taste. I found it for 1.50 in a Univ. bin and regretted the waste of a decent binding as I threw it in the trash.