The Palace of Illusions

June 16, 2014
“Once there was a hag who was really a princess, who lived in a storage unit that was really a castle.” In Addonizio’s (In the Box Called Pleasure) second collection of short stories, she explores the various ways people interpret the world in order to find peace. In “Beautiful Lady of the Snow,” a little girl punishes and subsequently kills her pets in order to find solace from the stress of living with her depressed mother in a motel. “Night Owls” follows a frustrated teenage vampire who loves a boy but also wants to suck his blood. The title story traces the decline of a young man who trades in his promising future for a love affair with an alcoholic carnie. “Ever After” is a pseudo-fairy tale about dwarves living in an apartment and waiting for a woman to redeem them from their terrible lives with an apple. Though Addonizio’s characters find themselves in unusual predicaments, she nonetheless convincingly renders their psyches. The stories are weighty but unassuming, and readers can identify with the characters whether they’re vampires, carnies, or pet killers. This book is for those who enjoy sardonic humor, forceful narration, and a variety of genres.

June 15, 2014
Poet Addonizio brings her hip, dark sensibility to a second collection of short fiction.In the first story, a second-grade girl kills her goldfish and pet bird in reaction to being sexually exploited by her obese grandfather. In the second, two sleazy young women get drunk and rip off the guy in whose hotel room they've spent the night. In the third, a girl takes time during a meditation class to reflect on her dead sister. Abusive relationships, breakups and terminal illness fill out the other 10 stories, but in the most appealing of them, Addonizio (Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within, 2009, etc.) doses her basic mix of hopelessness and alienation with cleverness and whimsy. A story about a girl who's half vampire has several laughs, the title story has fun with its circus setting, and two of the others, "The Hag's Journey" and "Ever After," reinvent fairy-tale tropes in ways that would be delightful if they didn't end so badly. In the latter, the Seven Dwarfs are a ragtag bunch of fellows living in a fifth-floor walk-up: a junkie named Dopey, a teen runaway named Sneezy, a recovering alcoholic named Doc, etc., most employed as faux munchkins at a restaurant called Oz. They're awaiting the fulfillment of a prophecy they read about in a book found in a Dumpster, one involving a beautiful girl and an apple. Unsurprisingly, things go south. "[M]y name isn't Grumpy," said Grumpy. "It's Carlos....I'm sick of all of you with your fake names and voodoo loser fantasies about some chick who ain't coming. She ain't coming, man. Get it through your fat heads."The worldview of this book is so bleak it might need a warning label.

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October 1, 2014

The short stories here are so tight and polished that it's hard to believe that this is only Addonizio's second collection; she is mainly known as a poet (Tell Me was a National Book Award finalist). The characters, from the woman with terminal cancer who takes a poetry workshop to the second grader who hates dancing on her grandpa's lap to the college student who happens to be half vampire, all exhibit "true grit." The stories are all strikingly honest depictions of characters trying their best at something, even if that something is not particularly good for them. The latter is true in the case of the title story, in which a man looks back on his youth working as a magician in a traveling carnival and lusting after the carnival owner's wife. There are also shorter pieces that give us more of a keyhole glimpse into a situation or character, such as "The Other Woman," "Blown," and new takes on classic fairy tales, such as "The Hag's Journey." VERDICT A highly enjoyable collection with something for everyone; recommended for readers of Lydia Davis or fans of modern fairy tales.--Kate Gray, Worcester P.L., MA

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