#21: The Gothic Fairy Tale

In an interview for this article, the author laughed off the idea that Flyaway could be categorised neatly into a single sub-genre – saying it could just as easily be analysed through the lens of literary fantasy or the gothic fairy tale.

I’ve previously written about literary fantasy as a sub-genre, but what does she mean by the gothic fairy tale?

Let’s do some more genre building.

The ‘gothic’ in the gothic fairy tale refers to a ‘notoriously difficult to define’ genre in itself, according to Associate Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University Holly Hirst. She lists the hallmarks of the gothic fiction genre as ‘its darkness, its transgression, its excess and its celebration or exploration of fear’. 

Meanwhile, she uses the fairy tale term ‘as a relatively loose term for a range of folkloric productions that may elsewhere be more divisively defined as “wonder-tales,” “folk-tales,” “myths” and other regional denominations’. 

To hybridise the genre, Hirst poses, is to present gothic fiction’s characteristic ‘elements of violence, moral transgression and dark sexual desires’ in the style of a folk story.

Going back to Flyaway for examples, we could find standalone chapters in which fairy tales are told as stories within the story. When narrated by Bettina, a standalone chapter comes with a disclaimer like, ‘Gary’s grandmother Vi, who had her own reasons, told it roughly this way, with variations depending on her listeners.’ When narrated by Gary, the fairy tale comes with interruptions from Trish. 

And this style contrasts with the sense of madness that pervades the novel; its persistent fantastical descriptions of mundane scenes leave the reader questioning whether a magical event is really happening. Readers may interpret fantastical foreshadowing as ‘flowery’ descriptions of mundane events or happenstance until the canon of the story officially recognises magic in its third act. 

‘“Be birds,” I whispered. “Be birds.” I held my breath as long as I could, shut my eyes,’ Bettina narrates as she uses magic to transform her brothers for the first time. ‘When I breathed out, I heard a shifting: a long rustling, a beating of wings that stirred my hair and clattered past – broad harsh feathers, trailing silken ones, pinions that whistled in the air and down that fell softly on my hands.’ 

On the previous page, she presents her brothers’ belief that they were once birds as a delusion: ‘All I could think of was the cold pressure of the filthy concrete under my knees; the reek of birds and blood; the terrible ruin of two boys who had tried to take themselves apart into whatever they believed our father had made them from.’ 

I’m attending the online launch event for the BFS Journal edition with my Flyaway review inside on 24 June at 7pm BST.

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