Tripping the Dark Fantastic

As Halloween approaches we look forward to the kinds of stories that can raise goose flesh and send shivers up and down the spine. This season there is an especially broad range of such tales for both children and adults. Here are some of the best.

Reviews by Sharon L. Shervington

The Grimm Reader: The Classic Tales of the Brothers Grimm
Translated and edited by Maria Tatar

For decades fairy tales were sanitized to the point of being almost unrecognizable. In the last few years, however, there has been a welcome resurgence in retellings of these iconic, and often universal, narratives. Books like Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales were a major factor in this current trend.

Meriting a place next to Bettelheim on the shelf is this Grimm Reader, which, along with the standard tales, contains an entire section of lesser-known tales for adults. A section at the end of the book is made up of quotes from some of the great fantasists and writers from Tolkein and Dickens to Plath and Wright, discussing the impact of fairy tales on their lives. A meaty introduction from A.S. Byatt is the icing on the fairy cake.

Norton; $16.95; 325 pages

Extraordinary
Written by Nancy Werlin

Extraordinary is a follow-up to Impossible, a novel based on the Simon and Garfunkel classic recording of the English folksong Scarborough Fair, in which an Elvin prince demands task after impossible task from the female descendents of a single family. That is the only way for them to escape the enchantment that has held them in his thrall since time out of mind. These are prime examples of the novel-length retellings of fairy tales that have found a passionate audience among young-adult readers.

Dial Books; $17.99; 393 pages

Film Noir: The Encyclopedia
Written by Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward, James Ursini, and Robert Porfirio

This totally extraordinary encyclopedia could well be called Noir and Neo-Noir. Quite a large section is devoted to work which was born out of the classic film noir period, the 1940s and 1950s, a renaissance of its dark themes, desperate women and hard-boiled private eyes. One thing that experts do agree on is that noir is more, much more, than simply a genre. It is an indigenous American form.  

Overlook Duckworth; $45; 512 pages

School of Fear: Class Is Not Dismissed and Everyone’s Afraid of Something
Written by Gitty Daneshvari

To one cup of Edgar Allan Poe add several spoonfuls of Roald Dahl (as in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and mix in a dash of Lemony Snicket. Stir well and you’ll have some idea of the mood of this pair of novels, or novel pair as it were, involving four children sent to a bizarre and remote school that purports to cure a diverse array of incurable phobias.

Fascinating and droll illustrations reminiscent of the timeless work of Edward Gorey provide the perfect foil for this unexpectedly comic set of romps, featuring witty children, a psycho headmistress and a handyman having a permanent bad hair day. It’s silly, sinister and surprisingly sweet.

Little, Brown; $16.99; 307 pages

The Queen of Patpong: A Poke Rafferty Thriller
Written by Timothy Hallinan

Travel writer Poke Rafferty thinks his life is settling down with the wife and daughter he rescued from the dark streets of Bangkok. Boy is he wrong. This timely novel deals with the dark realities of human trafficking in Asia, a practice that some families condone because they say they need the money. It also deals with a psychopathic element among the “contractors” modern governments, including our own, use in wars, such as the one in Afghanistan.

Out of the business for years Rose, Rafferty’s wife, finds that a serial killer from her past is not through with her. Now, her daughter’s life is at stake as well. Can this couple survive and protect the love they have fought so hard to establish?

William Morrow; $24.99, 312 pages