Review: White Cat, Black Dog, by Kelly Link

White Cat, Black Dog, by Kelly Link

a review by Rich Horton

White Cat, Black Dog is Kelly Link's fifth full-length collection. These books represent probably the most impressive portfolio of short fiction from the past quarter century. They are witty and sometimes sad, wildly imaginative, often horror-tinged, sometimes comic, sometimes surrealistic. They are character stories and idea stories, engaging, beautifully written, and above all strange. 

The conceit behind this book is stories based on fairy tales. Each source work is identified -- which is a good thing, because the connections are not always obvious. Link's primary modes are fantasy and horror, but her work does sometimes touch on SF. Conceit or no conceit, the collection is fully the equal of her previous books -- every story is intriguing, draws the reader in, offers mysteries, doesn't always offer solutions, gives us characters we care for but question, shows us wonder and beauty and fear. I'll treat the stories mostly in order of the TOC, except I'm saving the best for last.

"The White Cat’s Divorce" is good satirical fun, based on Madame D'Aulnoy's "The White Cat". A rich man decides to put his sons through trials to determine his heir. As usual, the youngest son is the protagonist, and we see him go through his three trials -- though mostly he spends his time at a strange house he ends up at in a snowstorm, occupied by intelligent cats. A particular white cat befriends him (and more, perhaps), and the young man stays with her until he must return to his father. As we expect, the rich man betrays his sons each time, setting another task. The white cat, of course, is the fulcrum of the eventual resolution of that problem. This is smart stuff, very funny when it wants to be, appropriately dark when it wants to be.

The only story original to this volume is "Prince Hat Underground", based on "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" (or perhaps its Swedish variant, "Prince Hat Under the Ground".) Prince Hat and Gary are a gay couple who've been together for decades. One day they are out together and a woman comes up to them -- someone who clearly knows Prince Hat. Gary knows Prince Hat has a past, and gathers this woman is part of that past, so is perhaps not surprised when Prince Hat vanishes. But Gary determines to follow him, and finds his way to Iceland, and to a world under the ground. This is a story carried by the characters, who are a delight, and by the exceptionally witty prose. And it is profoundly grounded, and sensible.

"The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear" is based -- you guessed it! -- on "The Boy Who Did Not Know Fear." Abby is an academic who gets stranded in Detroit after a conference. For strange reasons no flights leave for days, and she spends her time in her hotel, missing her wife and daughter. And finally gets a flight home. Nothing could sound less fantastical -- and maybe the story really isn't fantastical. But there are details -- for instance, the way Abby is marooned in Detroit begins to seem almost like a horror story. More, there is something implied but not said about the nature of this world ... Anyway, it’s a Kelly Link story, which by itself is recommendation enough, and it’s strange but homey in a very Kelly Link way.

"The Game of Smash and Recovery" is a rare pure SF piece from Link, about a girl, Anat, and her older brother, Oscar, who live in what seems to be a spaceship orbiting an alien world. There are Handmaidens (who might be robots, but who knows?) and Vampires (who might be aliens, but who knows?), and Oscar keeps promising Anat that their parents will soon return... The real question is "What is Anat?" -- and who knows? I was persistently reminded of Gene Wolfe, in all the best ways. Mysterious, moving, scary, and ever surprising. (I confess the link to the cited fairy tale, "Hansel and Gretel", never occurred to me on first reading, and still is not clear to me.)

"The Lady and the Fox" is a "Tam Lin" story, and that's pretty unmistakable. Miranda is the daughter of Joanie, who was a dresser for the very rich Elspeth Honeywell, but Joanie is in a Thailand jail, and Miranda has been invited to spend Christmas with the Honeywells. Elspeth's son Michael is Miranda's friend, and the Honeywell family is intriguing but tiring, until Miranda meets a strange man, Fenny, outside the house ... Year after year she sees this unaging man, only at Christmas, and somehow he fascinates her. even as Michael is in love with her, and Miranda herself is making her own way in the world. A satisfying and involving piece.

"Skinder's Veil" tells of a Ph. D. student, Andy, who is struggling with his dissertation. He gets an offer from an old friend who is house-sitting in a remote location, to take over for her while she visits her sister. Andy gets there late, to find a note with strange instructions -- he must let anyone who visits into the house, except the owner, Skinder. And for a while this seems okay, especially when a young woman, Rose-Red, visits and invites herself into Andy's bed. But a bear visits too, and the bear has stories to tell. What is this story about? I'm not sure, but I'm willing to keep asking myself -- what is Andy's eventual fate? This is a weird one, and still fascinating.

I said I'd save the best story for last. "The White Road" is set in what seems a post-apocalyptic future. All technological devices don't work -- or are too dangerous to use, for reasons we eventually learn. The narrator is part of a traveling company of actors and singers. They are heading from Chattanooga to Memphis with a young man who has a job waiting there. We hear about the "White Road" that appears at certain times -- what it means takes a while to come clear. And we notice that every place seems to have a corpse rotting somewhere -- and these corpses need replacing. Various delays mean they get to a town where the narrator hopes to see a woman he loves -- but the town is deserted. And there is no corpse ... These corpses are important -- they keep some sort of monsters away. But they are actors -- one of them will pretend to be dead, and the others will mourn them. All this is deeply strange -- stranger than I've made it seem -- and the White Road is strange as well. And what happens: the playacting, the mourning -- the aftermath ... is a gut punch, deeply sad, oddly beautiful. This is one of the great recent stories, remarkably affecting, weird in the best, most complete, way. What's it about? Death. Guilt. Loss. Lots of things. Astonishing work.