The Modern Fairies

Pollard (Delphi) delivers a delightfully raunchy romp through the court of Louis XIV in 1682 Paris. A group of women led by Madame Marie d’Aulnoy meet regularly to discuss 25 fairy tales, which lend themselves to the title and themes of each chapter, beginning with “The Tale of Donkey-Skin,” about a king who seeks to marry his daughter. Soon men start joining the gatherings, and the group is dubbed the Modern Fairies by others at court. As the members discuss the tales of Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Prince Charming, the women note how their own husbands could have them banished for infidelity—indeed, one of them has been sleeping with a bachelor member of the Modern Fairies while her husband is away. In “The Tales of Anguillete and Red Riding Hood,” Pollard’s omniscient narrator suggests there’s a “wolf” monitoring the group for Louis XIV, who fears the political power of storytelling. Pollard’s ribald prose is addictively amusing, as in her depiction of the king as “short, pockmarked, always some problem with his arsehole... his little dick florid with some new sexually transmitted infection... such a pathetic little horn-dog.” This magnetic revisionist historical deserves a wide readership. Agent: Lucy Carson, Friedrich Agency. (July)