The Crane Husband
If you can get past — or better yet, go along with — the crane, this brief book is absorbing, thought-provoking, and, in spite of or perhaps because of its outlandish premise, irresistibly readable.
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The novella is inspired by the folktale of the crane wife but what at first seems like a straightforward gender swap evolves to explore the boundaries between love and obligation. Readers are likely to grasp the sympathetic narrator’s situation much earlier than she does ... The plot is sometimes slow-moving as readers wait for the narrator to catch up, but it arrives at a thought-provoking conclusion.
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In bleak but beautiful prose, Barnhill maintains the original fable’s examination of female exploitation at the hands of male partners and the limits of self-sacrifice, while also touching on more contemporary themes like drone surveillance and the commodification of art. The depiction of the perpetual cycle of abuse may be too depressing for some, but fans of dark, surreal fantasy will be enthralled.
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