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Title: A Pretty Mouth
Author: Molly Tanzer
Published: Portland: Lazy Facist Press, 2012
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 227
Total Page Count: 131,584
Text Number: 385
Read Because: blurbed by Caitlín R. Kiernan, borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In four short stories and a novella, A Pretty Mouth traces the long and sordid history of the Calipash family, renown for their incestuous and demonic tendencies. It's a tongue-in-cheek Lovecraftian pastiche (with more emphasis on tentacles than cosmic horror), but Tanzer writes is skill and a distinctive, flexible voice. She engages the gothic genre, signature Lovecraftian tropes such as the apocalyptic log, and dozens of historical quirks and clichés with the fondness that marks her Lovecraftian pastiche—it's incisive and lascivious parody, but it's parody which loves its subject matter. The collection begs something like a family tree or framing narrative; the in-character author's note provides some overarching structure, but it's too little too late at the end of the book. And while this is my favorite brand of parody, I confess I'm not one for humor: in the end I wanted something less clever and more substantial. Nonetheless, A Pretty Mouth is a delight: distinctive, as flagrant as incisive, and difficult to put down. I have some caveats but I recommend it, and I look forward to more from Tanzer.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
Author: Molly Tanzer
Published: Portland: Lazy Facist Press, 2012
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 227
Total Page Count: 131,584
Text Number: 385
Read Because: blurbed by Caitlín R. Kiernan, borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In four short stories and a novella, A Pretty Mouth traces the long and sordid history of the Calipash family, renown for their incestuous and demonic tendencies. It's a tongue-in-cheek Lovecraftian pastiche (with more emphasis on tentacles than cosmic horror), but Tanzer writes is skill and a distinctive, flexible voice. She engages the gothic genre, signature Lovecraftian tropes such as the apocalyptic log, and dozens of historical quirks and clichés with the fondness that marks her Lovecraftian pastiche—it's incisive and lascivious parody, but it's parody which loves its subject matter. The collection begs something like a family tree or framing narrative; the in-character author's note provides some overarching structure, but it's too little too late at the end of the book. And while this is my favorite brand of parody, I confess I'm not one for humor: in the end I wanted something less clever and more substantial. Nonetheless, A Pretty Mouth is a delight: distinctive, as flagrant as incisive, and difficult to put down. I have some caveats but I recommend it, and I look forward to more from Tanzer.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
