Wild Swan

A dazzling collection of dark and enchanting tales from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours

In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, Michael Cunningham, one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, reimagines the people and talismans of lands far, far away. The mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much wonder are transformed into stories of sublime revelation.

A poisoned apple and a monkey''s paw with the power to change fate; a girl whose extraordinarily long hair causes catastrophe; a man with one human arm and one swan''s wing; and a house deep in the forest, constructed of gumdrops and gingerbread, vanilla frosting and boiled sugar. Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: the years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half cured of a curse.

Cunningham reveals the Beast ahead of you in line at the convenience store, a malformed little man going to disastrous lengths to procure a child, and a loutish and lazy Jack who trades a cow for a handful of magic beans. Exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, these bedtime stories are rarely this dark, perverse, or true.