I have always been fascinated by books which bring fantastical elements into our everyday world, a genre referred to as magical realism. Following in the footsteps of such well known authors as Alice Hoffman, and Daniel Wallace, authors like Sarah Addison Allen, Audrey Niffenegger and Aimee Bender offer us fresh insight into the human soul through riveting stories that bring fairy tales and fables to modern life.
You may recognize several of these authors better by the movies that were made out of their books. TheTime Traveler’s Wife, a recent movie, was created from the book written by Audrey Niffenegger. You may remember Big Fish, by Daniel Wallace, and Practical Magic, by Alice Hoffman, from a few years ago. They remain two of my favorite movies.
Alice Hoffman has a BA and an MA in Writing, and lives in Boston. She has published a total of twenty-one novels, three books of short fiction, and eight books for children and young adults. Her adult books include Local Girls, Here on Earth, Practical Magic, Turtle Moon, Seventh Heaven, Illumination Night, and Property Of, to name just a few. alicehoffman.com.
My favorite remains Practical Magic in which the magic of passionate, romantic love can set you free or be entangling, even obsessive. The Owens women are cursed to lose their loves early but love also heals.
Daniel Wallace lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and is the Director of the Creative Writing Program, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has written four books, Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician, Ray in Reverse, Big Fish and The Watermelon King. danielwallace.org.
In Big Fish , Daniel Wallace writes a novel that returns a father to those mythic proportions that children see, while encompassing the frailties of humanity. Though akin to a tall tale, this little book resounds with truth.
Sarah Addison Allen was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina and has a B.A. In Literature. Her books include Garden Spells, The Sugar Queen, The Girl Who Chased the Moon and The Peach Keeper. sarahaddisonallen.com.
My favorite, The Sugar Queen, centers around four couples. Allen makes much of the interconnectedness between the couples, intertwining the stories further, giving the book a small town feel. Full of Southern charm, romance and magical realism cross paths.
Although trained as a visual artist, Audrey Niffenegger is a faculty member of the Columbia College Fiction Writing Department and lives in the Chicago area. Her books include The Time Traveler’s Wife, Her Fearful Symmetry, The Night Bookmobile, and she is currently working on The Chinchilla Girl in Exile. audreyniffenegger.com.
She first received critical acclaim with her novel The Time Traveler’s Wife, in which Henry meets Clare when he is 28 and Clare is 20, but Clare first meets Henry fourteen years earlier when she is 6. You see, Henry suffers with Chrono-Displacement Disorder. He can suddenly disappear out of his time-line and be dropped down anywhere, at any time, without clothes or money to sustain him.
Aimee Bender lives in Los Angeles and teaches creative writing at USC. She is the award winning author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, An Invisible Sign of My Own, Willful Creatures and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. flammableskirt.com.
Aimee Bender offers a lyrical story in The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Rose Edelstein is an average little girl. When her mother bakes her a trial run birthday cake for Rose’s ninth birthday, Rose discovers an unusual gift. She can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. Though it is sweet and delicious, the cake tastes empty. It is a painful awareness.
With Magical Realism, things happen in a way that could never happen in real life, but in doing so make the story more true than if it had happened realistically, possibly because impossible things happen in real life all the time. When that happens, we shrug and ascribe it to coincidence. It’s up to you whether you believe in coincidence or not.
