‘A Wild Swan and Other Tails’: Award winner breathes new life into old tales

In 'A Wild Swan and Other Tales,” Michael Cunningham re-imagines a variety of fairy tales. Though popular culture is currently awash in retold and remixed fairy tales (only superheroes and space operas might hold more of our attention at the moment), it might seem like odd territory for Cunningham.

But the author, who is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a Pulitzer Prize winner for his 1998 novel 'The Hours,” delivers incisive investigations of the complicated inner lives of familiar characters, changing our perception of their stories.

Take, for example, 'Little Man,” a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin that posits that the whole situation - in which the title character is entitled to a princess's baby in exchange for magical services rendered unless she can guess his name - might have escalated from a simple desire to help a maiden in a tough spot. In the second person narration, Rumpelstiltskin considers his situation:

'You don't want to descend to blackmail. You wish she hadn't posed the question, and you have no idea how to answer. You'd never expose her. But you're so sure about your ability to rescue the still-unconceived child, who will, without your help be abused by the father (don't men who've been abused always do the same to their children?), who'll become another punishing and capricious king in his own time ...”

Cummingham complicates the notion of moral or just behavior, endowing old characters with new motives, new failings, and new misunderstandings. The stories are often surprising, and those surprises invigorate the tales.

The book is illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, a Japanese illustrator who lives and teaches in New York City. Her black and white images are sensual and frank, establishing in a glance that these fairy tales are for adults.