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The Wild Swans by Peg Kerr (2001)
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The Wild Swans
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This novel focuses on two outcasts on two journeys in two eras. In 1689 England, Lady Eliza Grey's 11 brothers are turned into swans. Rejected by her father, Eliza is flown to America by her brothers where she has a chance to save them--until she is accused of witchcraft. In the second story, set in 1981 New York, Elias Latham has AIDS, is banished from his father's house, and must learn to live on the streets. Like Eliza, Elias struggles to understand the suffering he must endure.
464 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published May 1,1999
This edition
- Format
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464 pages, Mass Market Paperback
- Published
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November 1, 2001 by Aspect
- ISBN
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9780446608473
- ASIN
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0446608475
- Language
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English
About the author
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Peg Kerr was born in a Chicago suburb, moved to Minnesota to attend St. Olaf College, and has stayed in Minnesota ever since.
With $50.00 from her first paycheck, she registered for a science fiction and fantasy writing class. There, she met her husband and wrote the first story she ever sold. In hindsight, this is all quite pleasant consolation for the fact that she was fired from her job the day the class started.
She attended the Clarion Writers Workshop in 1988 and has an M.A. in English Literature, specializing in speculative fiction. Her fiction has appeared in various science fiction and fantasy magazines and anthologies. Emerald House Rising is her first novel. The Wild Swans, a stand-alone fantasy based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, is her second. Both novels were published by Warner Books.
Peg Kerr presently lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two daughters. She has earned her black belt in karate.
With $50.00 from her first paycheck, she registered for a science fiction and fantasy writing class. There, she met her husband and wrote the first story she ever sold. In hindsight, this is all quite pleasant consolation for the fact that she was fired from her job the day the class started.
She attended the Clarion Writers Workshop in 1988 and has an M.A. in English Literature, specializing in speculative fiction. Her fiction has appeared in various science fiction and fantasy magazines and anthologies. Emerald House Rising is her first novel. The Wild Swans, a stand-alone fantasy based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, is her second. Both novels were published by Warner Books.
Peg Kerr presently lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two daughters. She has earned her black belt in karate.
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This wasn't for me.
I didn't particularly enjoy the Elias side of the story.
I'm afraid I was mentally rolling my eyes quite soon in at stuff.
The Eliza part of the story I found more engaging,but as it was broken up all the time by other chapters,it stilted the flow.
I didn't particularly enjoy the Elias side of the story.
I'm afraid I was mentally rolling my eyes quite soon in at stuff.
The Eliza part of the story I found more engaging,but as it was broken up all the time by other chapters,it stilted the flow.
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I didn't read the cover blurb very carefully when I picked this one up. I was more captivated by the historical setting and the fairy tale. So - no time travel romance here between gay Elias and Eliza of the bespelled brothers. Elias' story is tragic, and the story of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s needs to be told more, as it devastated a generation of gay men and hemophiliacs. However, it has very little to do with the tale of Eliza and her brothers which is more of a retelling of a classic fairy tale plugged into Puritan New England.
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I liked the story set in modern times, but the fairy tale portion read very stilted. I got 3/4s of the way through :/
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This was a bit of a surprise. I started this book expecting a straightforward retelling of a fairy tale, but it was a bit more than that. While Eliza's tale certainly is what I expected, Elias's story was quite different. I don't want to spoil too much, but suffice it to say that it was more poignant and much deeper than I expected.
All in all, I though this book was really good. I enjoyed the way the different tales were interwoven. Miles apart at first, they slowly moved towards one another. While some of the parallels were a bit too much for me (such as the writer using the exact same descriptions for Eliza and Lizzie), most of them worked really well. The only thing that really bothered me, was Kerr's way of speeding up the narrative at times. This caused her to skip certain events that I would've liked to see in more detail. Less isn't always more... but apart from that, this book is excellent and I really recommend it.
All in all, I though this book was really good. I enjoyed the way the different tales were interwoven. Miles apart at first, they slowly moved towards one another. While some of the parallels were a bit too much for me (such as the writer using the exact same descriptions for Eliza and Lizzie), most of them worked really well. The only thing that really bothered me, was Kerr's way of speeding up the narrative at times. This caused her to skip certain events that I would've liked to see in more detail. Less isn't always more... but apart from that, this book is excellent and I really recommend it.
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A strange blend of two stories: the classic fairytale of the brothers turned into swans, and the rise of AIDS in 1980s New York.
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I was really interested in the way the author told two stories in parallel: a retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale and a modern story with elements from the fairy tale. I saw this author at a talk about retelling fairy tales in literature about a year and a half ago. I had never read anything by her before and wanted to read this book in particular after hearing the discussion. This is different than the kind of books I usually like and read, but I liked it very much.
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It was all there in the background, Elias realized while looking through the album later, like the distant cacophony of traffic on the other side of a closed window. You think you can ignore it, but it keeps getting a little louder, a little closer, irritating at first, and then more and more ominous. There was a kind of anxiety among their friends, even the ones who seemed entirely healthy... [loc 2802]
The story is told in two parallel strands: Eliza, in the 1680s, discovers that her stepmother's changed her eleven brothers into swans; and Elias, in 1980s New York, is learning to live with his sexuality as a gay man, even while his friends are dying of a mysterious illness. Both Elias and Eliza have been disowned by their parents, but find love and friendship elsewhere; both are silent, though silence = death; both find love unexpectedly, though Elias has to endure the lingering death of his lover Sean.
There are other echoes: a man of the cloth questioning his faith; food placed just out of reach; the role of the mother, or the stepmother, in bringing doom to a son; the need to create art in the face of a curse ... And there are hints that the two stories might be connected: that Eliza might be Elias' ancestor, and that another (trans) character might be the reincarnation of someone who deeply regretted her inability to help Eliza. But these are only hints: Kerr has a light touch. She doesn't hammer home the parallels, or sentimentalise either Elias' or Eliza's suffering: nor does she glamourise the gay scene at its brief heyday. Neither protagonist is given to dramatics, but both experience profound emotion. The Wild Swans is a powerful story about love, and hope, and -- to a certain extent -- self-sacrifice.
I read this novel when it was first published in 1999: I haven't reread it since, and recalled very little of the plot, though I did remember the characters and themes. It's aged surprisingly well, and I'm happy that it is now available again, in ebook format, from new publisher Endeavour. (I received a free e-copy from NetGalley in exchange for this honest review.) There's also a new foreword by Peg Kerr, which highlights how far we've come in those two decades: not only in treatments for AIDS but in marriage rights.
Read for the 'Either a Favorite or a New-to-You Publisher' rubric of the 2020 Reading Women Challenge
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