Ninetails
Nine Tales
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
ONE OF THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY BOOKS OF 2024 WITH THE WASHINGTON POST, ELLE, AND ELECTRIC LIT
“A sumptuous and lively collection, leaping from story to story in much the same way a fox does — surprisingly, gracefully, and with impressive aim. I loved this book.” – Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of Get in Trouble and The Book of Love
“What I love most about Ninetails is its fierce allegiance to underdogs of all kinds, its careful and myriad empathy for its characters, but also its pure and artisanal delight in language and fictive possibilities.” —Ocean Vuong, New York Times-bestselling author of On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous and Time is a Mother
A “lyrical and virtuosic” fabulist debut collection of stories re-imagining the nine-tailed fox spirit of Asian folklore (Gina Chung).
A fox spirit avenges a teen girl by seducing her abuser. A shapeshifting woman finds herself chased through the woods by fox hunters; meanwhile, an assassination plot called Operation Fox Hunt unfolds against the last Queen of Korea. Chinese migrants hoping to make new lives as “paper children” in America find their pasts—and their hopes for the future—embodied in the foxes that haunt the harbor in 1900s Angel Island. In the nine tales of Ninetails, acclaimed poet Sally Wen Mao reimagines the fox spirit from Asian folklore—a shapeshifter, shaman, and seductress—as an icon of vengeance, solidarity and liberation. The characters of her stories are varied—from silicone sex dolls who come to life with new purpose, to women whose crushes manifest as stones—but they all reach for a common purpose: to find truth and belonging in a difficult world determined to consider them alien.
With the fabulist vibrancy of Carmen Maria Machado, the sinuous world-building of Helen Oyeyemi, and the sensuous feminist rage of Han Kang, Ninetails is both timeless—unearthing a cultural icon whose origins date back over a thousand years—and timely in its contemporary political urgency.
Customer Reviews
Stories of the Fox Spirits
“Ninetails: Nine Tails” an Asian fox-spirit themed collection of stories by Sally Wen Mao. Ms. Mao is probably best known for her poetry, of which there are three published collections so far. Ninetails is her first published prose fiction collection.
It does indeed feature nine tales, as the title suggests. However, chapters of one story, “The Haunting of Angel Island,” begin and end the book, as well as sit between the other stories. Almost all stories deal directly or indirectly with the shape-shifting fox spirits of Asian lore. These vary from the fully ascended Kumiho, which are the celestial nine tailed foxes who have achieved divinity, to those who aspire to become these beings. There are various paths to this elevated state that are explored.
The stories all mesh together in a very satisfying way, but of course all of them will not please the average reader. Some will stand out more than others. Another aspect of the work that is disturbing is the historical context of how Asian women were treated, and indeed are still treated today. It’s only painful because it’s accurate. However, in many cases, the characters rise above their situations, and there are positive outcomes. Overall, I think this is a very interesting and engaging collection.