New Yorker Fiction Review #262: "Hansa and Gretyl and Piece of Shit" by Rebecca Curtis

Review of the short story from the Nov.16, 2020 issue of The New Yorker... 

Unless I'm forgetting something, or my eyes deceive me (both equally possible, let's face it), it's been about six years since I've read anything by Rebecca Curtis. Her story "The Pink House" still sticks in my head after all these years, even though I had forgotten -- until today -- who wrote it. 

Rebecca Curtis is one of the most darkly funny contemporary writers, and while "Hansa and Gretyl and Piece of Shit" is not her best work, to me it was an impossibly intriguing read. It made me a bit uncomfortable, in a way, as art -- good art -- often does, and was shot through with a thread of tension strong enough to pull you through any boring parts, of which there weren't many. 

I'm not a big fan of the "fairy-tale retold" genre. In fact, I pretty-much hate the "fairy-tale retold" genre. However, "Hansa and Gretyl and Piece of Shit," thankfully, is not a fairy-tale retold. Instead, Rebecca Curtis takes certain elements of the fairy-tale to build a short story about a lonely teenager being raised in the woods by two impossibly self-centered and unaware parents, who gets appendicitis but has to suffer through it because no one will take her to the hospital. A few darkly-comic details aside -- such as the hunter who gives her a magic whistle and eventually comes to save her -- that's the plot of the story.

What I liked about this story was actually the comic book feel to it. It did really feel like a modern day version of a fairy-tale, without the overwrought kookiness and annoying adherence to the fairy-tale plot that usually burdens this kind of story. There is far too much "realism" in fiction, frankly, especially as concerns people's lives who aren't actually that interesting. By making this story often grotesquely unrealistic -- but just realistic enough -- Rebecca Curtis creates a world and a setting you just can't look away from.

Furthermore, the "through-line" about Gretyl's worsening appendicitis provides such a great degree of tension that I absolutely could not put the story down and almost yelled out loud, "Just take her to the goddam hospital!" When you find yourself yelling at a story...like, words on a page...you know the author is doing something right.