Happily: A Personal History—with Fairy Tales

People turn to fairy tales because they want to understand the “muddy terrain of the human psyche,” writes poet and Paris Review columnist Mark (Wild Milk) in her probing memoir-in-essays. Mark uses fairy tales as framing devices to unpack a range of topics including motherhood, marriage, racism, and mortality. When thinking about how to protect her Black Jewish sons from racism and anti-Semitism, she turns to Pinocchio’s Geppetto, who “in the world of fairy tales” is “the mother of all mothers.” Bluebeard’s wives offer a way to parse the “many lives” Mark’s husband had before they married (he has two ex wives). Tom Thumb, the boy who is “caught inside a swallow cycle,” reminds Mark that she fears this “dear, sick country” will swallow her sons, and Rapunzel’s long hair prompts her to think about her 20-year-old sister, who was diagnosed with cancer and needs a wig. Mark’s sharp analysis captures the “cultural resilience” of fairy tales, and her writing hums with lyrical self-reflection (“I was the rattle-ghost that disrupted my friend’s kingdom”). Readers will find this full of insight. Agent: Sarah Bowlin, Aevitas Creative. (Mar.)