This is a story in the genre of magical realism. The protagonist (a girl raised by werewolves) is sent to St. Lucy’s School to acquire the skills to behave like a human being. The nuns at the institution teach how to speak human language, how to walk, how to eat, and how to associate with boys raised by werewolves at a ball. At the end of the story she returns home after successfully completing her job at the school. She says when she meets her parents “‘So,’ I said, telling my first human lie. ‘I’m home.’” In fact she has even acquired the ability to tell a lie.
The 30-year-old writer, Karren Russel, creates the world of magical realism. Although the reader knows that there exist no werewolves, nor St. Lucy’s Home, they are lulled into the illusion that the girl werewolves and the nuns are engaged in the school work somewhere in the world. You feel that if you visit the school, you can see the girls being trained to become human beings.
The story is successful because Russel knows how to balance the reality and the magical world. The girls sometimes behave with wolf’s instinct, like waggling their tails or smell the nuns or spray “exuberant yellow streams,” but on the other hand they want to get good grades from the nuns, dance as well as Janette, the best student. Although the protagonist loves Mirabella, the slowest learner, she despise Mirabella in front of the nuns. This is human two-facedness.
Probably Russel tried to criticize the white people’s domination over black people some dozens of years ago. The white people tried to get rid of the black people’s identity by denying their language, custom and manners, names, and religion.
Magical realism attracts the reader because every reader is fascinated by magic yet they do not want the magic too far away from real world. It should have something tangible and real so that they can identify themselves with the protagonist in the story.
I want to read more books in this genre and write my own magical realism story some day in the near future.
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