“No Poisoned Comb” – Amal El-Mohtar

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Image: Core values, posted at Flickr by genericavatar under a Creative Commons License.

What we call wicked in a stepmother might be only the tip of the poisoned dagger.

Amal El-Mohtar’s “No Poisoned Comb” is a subversion of fairytale that, mid-twist, turns the knife deeper into the rosy red core of what you think you know. We hear the testimony of the Evil Queen of Snow White, who tells us we’ve got the original tale all tangled up. She’s convivial about this mangling of history: “I bear no...