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الزوج الكركي
أخبرتْني أمِّي ذات مرة: «إنَّها لحقيقةٌ مُحزِنة عن الحبِّ الحقيقي. تحبُّني الأغنام حبًّا جمًّا، ولهذا السبب أنا قادرةٌ على التسبُّب لها في الألم. فالحبُّ هو السبيل الأقل قدرة على المقاومة، أفهمتِ عليَّ؟ يتطلَّب الأمر كثيرًا من المجهود والعناء لإيذاء شخصٍ لا يثق بك، أو يخاف منك. أو يكرهك. بينما الحبُّ يشرعُ الأبواب على مصاريعها، ويُفسِحُ الطريق لكلِّ صنوف الرُّعب والفظائع بالدخول. لذلك لا تَجفلُ الأغنام مني عندما آتيها بشيءٍ مزعج».
ثمَّ أخذَت يدي بينَ يديها، واستحالَ وجهُها جادًّا وَرَصينًا: «الأمر نفسهُ ينطبقُ عليكِ. سوفَ تفهمين كلامي هذا عندما تكبرين. سوفَ تعلمين أنَّكِ أكثر أمانًا بالقُرب من الأشخاص الذين لا تثقين بهم ولا تُحبِّينهم. إنَّ حارسَكِ في الأعلى، أتفهمينني؟ كلَّما أحببتِ شخصًا أكثر، باتَ أخطرَ عليكِ. وكلَّما أحببتِ شخصًا أكثر، كنتِ أكثر استعدادًا لإبراز حنجرتكِ له».
***
هذه الرواية ليست مُجرَّدَ إعادة سَردٍ مُعَاصِرٍ للأسطورة اليابانيَّة «الزَّوجةُ الكُركيُّ/Tsuru Nyōbō» التي تروي كيف تغدو العلاقات العاطفية مؤذية إذا مَسَّها الجَشعُ، بل هي حكايةٌ فانتازية ديستوبية شِعرية، غارقة في الواقعيَّة، ومحبوكة بالاستعارات والصور والحبِّ العائلي والتَّضحية. تتوغَّلُ «كيلي بارنهيل» -الحائزة على عدَّة جوائز عالمية- في أعماق النفس البشرية، والأسطورة وعواقب الإساءات الجسديَّة والعاطفيَّة التي تتركُ آثارًا أُسريَّةً مروِّعةً قد لا تزولُ.
الناشر
ثمَّ أخذَت يدي بينَ يديها، واستحالَ وجهُها جادًّا وَرَصينًا: «الأمر نفسهُ ينطبقُ عليكِ. سوفَ تفهمين كلامي هذا عندما تكبرين. سوفَ تعلمين أنَّكِ أكثر أمانًا بالقُرب من الأشخاص الذين لا تثقين بهم ولا تُحبِّينهم. إنَّ حارسَكِ في الأعلى، أتفهمينني؟ كلَّما أحببتِ شخصًا أكثر، باتَ أخطرَ عليكِ. وكلَّما أحببتِ شخصًا أكثر، كنتِ أكثر استعدادًا لإبراز حنجرتكِ له».
***
هذه الرواية ليست مُجرَّدَ إعادة سَردٍ مُعَاصِرٍ للأسطورة اليابانيَّة «الزَّوجةُ الكُركيُّ/Tsuru Nyōbō» التي تروي كيف تغدو العلاقات العاطفية مؤذية إذا مَسَّها الجَشعُ، بل هي حكايةٌ فانتازية ديستوبية شِعرية، غارقة في الواقعيَّة، ومحبوكة بالاستعارات والصور والحبِّ العائلي والتَّضحية. تتوغَّلُ «كيلي بارنهيل» -الحائزة على عدَّة جوائز عالمية- في أعماق النفس البشرية، والأسطورة وعواقب الإساءات الجسديَّة والعاطفيَّة التي تتركُ آثارًا أُسريَّةً مروِّعةً قد لا تزولُ.
الناشر
176 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 28, 2023
187 people are currently reading
33658 people want to read
About the author
Kelly Barnhill
53 books4,288 followersKelly Barnhill is an author and teacher. She won the World Fantasy Award for her novella The Unlicensed Magician, a Parents Choice Gold Award for Iron Hearted Violet, the Charlotte Huck Honor for The Girl Who Drank the Moon, and has been a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the Andre Norton award, and the PEN/USA literary prize. She was also a McKnight Artist's Fellowship recipient in Children's Literature. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her three children and husband. You can chat with her on her blog at www.kellybarnhill.com
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March 10, 2025
‘My family had told stories of women becoming birds since before my mother was born,’ the 15 year old narrator tell us in Kelly Barnhill’s novella The Crane Husband, launching us into a world where the magic of myths might still linger as we churn onward into an increasingly automated, mechanical world.The descendant of farmers, our narrator has learned to be tough, taking care of all the family finances, cooking, cleaning and raising of her little brother, Michael, since her father passed away. But when an actual crane comes to stay, usurping her father’s role as her tapestry artist mother falls deeply in love and spends all day in the studio or in bed with the crane neglecting her children, and with no money or food coming in, things begin to get desperate and our narrator must take action. A sinister and subversive modern retelling of the Japanese myth
Tsuru Nyōbō (The Crane Wife)
, Kelly Barnhill weaves her own magic in this deeply layer, eerie tale where grim realities of generational trauma and domestic abuse collide with the powers of art and myth making for a delightfully dark read.
There are variations on the original folktale, but the basis is that a farmer marries a crane disguised as a woman who then uses her own feathers to weave beautiful tapestries which the farmer sells and becomes rich. But he is never happy, always demanding more and more, unaware his wife—who grows thinner by the day and does not allow him to watch her weave—is actually a crane. The story is of interest to the father, who tells our narrator this story as he is on his deathbed, seeing as his wife is herself a weaver and he explains the long history of weavers in myths around the world being able to change fate with the single pull of a thread. But ‘why a crane?’ he wonders of the folktale:
This may prove darkly portentous in Barnhill’s retelling, where the cruel animalistic behavior of the crane is also metaphorical for abuse. Barnhill’s tale hinges on the believability that the mother is dating a literal crane and, wonder upon wonders, she pulls it off beautifully. A Newbery Medal Winner for her absolutely stunning junior fiction novel, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, Barnhill has an incredible capacity for infusing childlike wonderment and whimsy into dark adult fiction that makes this novel work so successfully. While aimed at an adult audience, this is a story that would likely register equally well with anyone from teenagers on, having a sort of timeless and broad appeal much like folktales themselves.
‘I was nothing like my mother. I was everything like my mother. Both at the same time.’
Generational trauma is at the heart of this story, with the narrator hearing the long legacy of hard fathers and vanished women on the family farm. The mother explains it very plainly, insisting on it as literal fact despite the narrator questioning if this was just a metaphor:
What a legacy to have to live up to, especially in a town where her family is the source of gossip with more believable tales of her grandmother hopping a train to become strung out on drugs. All tales the mother dismisses as the typical misogynistic response to the inherent magic of women, yet she herself has not flown away in keeping with the timeline of farm mothers taking flight when their children reach the age of 5. Instead she weaves tapestries, which the daughter sells online under the fake name “Bruce. ‘My mother’s tapestries contained multitudes,’ she tells us of her mother’s artwork that has moved people to tears or break out in song, ‘her method of gathering materials was as haphazard and serendipitous as the way she lived the rest of her life…each item was stitched into the story.’ Barnhill nests the idea of creating narratives into her own story, reminding us that ‘art exists to transcend, transfix, and transform.’ This is a lovely sentiment, enlarged all the more considering The Crane Husband is itself transcending and transforming a familiar tale into a modern context about family and trauma.
‘No one person owned the farm. No one walked the farm. The farm belonged to machines and shareholders. No one loved it anymore. No one was tied to it anymore.’
The family legacy with the farm has been severed, however, as the family had to sell it off decade ago. ‘There was no farm anymore to fly from,’ the narrator considers, wondering if this is why their mother hasn’t followed the family tradition of flying away, ‘how can you run from your birthright when your birthright is gone?’ The farm now belonged to a conglomerate of stock-holders living far away and the rows and rows of corn are no longer tended by the hands of laborers and run entirely by machines. Drones police the skies while automated plows tend the fields, with living people only arriving once a year for a share-holder meeting to ‘pretend that they were still connected to the land.’ This dystopian farm setting probes fears of humans put out of work by machines, but also is representative of a world where magic and myths are fading such as the legacy of women transforming into birds. ‘Even birds weren’t allowed,’ we are told and the sky is entirely empty aside from the drones keeping anyone away, drones with sharp blades that could slice up a crane if it flew across the field, or the mysterious naked man that one night appeared in their barn bleeding from a run-in with the drones.
Barnhill also employs this lifeless farm as an expression of climate change. We see the industrialization of the farm leaving behind ‘the plowed-up remains of coyotes and foxes and birds littering the fields,’ while the drones are ‘devouring the world with their eyes.’ There is an unsettling tone built through menacing depictions of the natural world, the sky always oppressively empty, and even the stars are ‘so bright and sharp it hurt to look at.’ Spring seems to come earlier each year to this midwest town and ‘soon, people said, there would be no winter at all.’ As the methods of old, the storytelling of old, begins to vanish along with the mythology they carry, so too does the world as it is replaced by heartless machines and algorithms.
‘How can anyone survive that kind of love?’
The abuse of the planet is mirrored in the abusive relationships in the story. The mother tells of her father being a ‘hard’ man, of the ways he beat his wife until she finally flew away. This opens a cycle of excusing abuse, with the mother frequently bruised after encounters with brief lover. The gashes left on her body from the crane’s beak and talons during their time in bed (oh yes, Barnhill goes there) she dismisses as natural—he is a wild animal after all—which implies that she views the bruises from being hit during the night by what must be a man in the house as just the natural way of things as well. This harkens back to the original tale in which the man becomes abusive as his mysterious wife doesn’t produce enough art fast enough for him, and we see the mother deteriorating as she struggles to achieve a tapestry that satisfies the crane. Like the crane wife growing thinner as she uses up her feathers, the mother grows thinner without nourishment and the children go hungry. Yet she doesn’t seem to notice or care. ‘You can’t live on love, Mom,’ the daughter admonishes her, ‘it’s not possible.’
‘She was a flash of downy white, leaving the farm behind. Feathers and wings and all. And sky for days.’
Kelly Barnhill pulls off a nearly miraculous narrative here, stitching reality, myth, art and the power of storytelling into her own startling tapestry. The story moves slowly but engagingly, weaving the past and present together towards a shocking but well-earned climax that is certain to satisfy. Even at its most unsettling, Barnhill’s prose proves oddly comforting, seducing the reader forward with a rather dreamlike cadence full of striking imagery and rolling phrasing, even when the dreamlike nature becomes a waking nightmare. The characters are quite endearing too, from the narrator dodging Social Services to care for her charming little brother, to even the sinister crane who is handled with such expertise as to really bring his scenes to life regardless of how outlandish they would otherwise seem. Everything feels very natural, everything is expertly balanced, tight and taut across this 120pg novella, and Barnhill’s history working in children’s literature comes alive making this a fairy tale for adults that reads with a charm rarely felt beyond being an actual child reading the finest of imaginative junior fiction. I'm told the story bears resemblance to her previous novel, When Women Were Dragons, though here it is working as a retelling and done in a slight amount of space. The Crane Husband is a massive success and an unnerving foray into abuse and myth that has like left its feather in my heart and mind where they will stay for a long, long time.
4.5/5
‘I could make it beautiful. I could make everything beautiful. Art could change your life. Art could give you wings. And you could fly away. Don’t you want to fly away?’
There are variations on the original folktale, but the basis is that a farmer marries a crane disguised as a woman who then uses her own feathers to weave beautiful tapestries which the farmer sells and becomes rich. But he is never happy, always demanding more and more, unaware his wife—who grows thinner by the day and does not allow him to watch her weave—is actually a crane. The story is of interest to the father, who tells our narrator this story as he is on his deathbed, seeing as his wife is herself a weaver and he explains the long history of weavers in myths around the world being able to change fate with the single pull of a thread. But ‘why a crane?’ he wonders of the folktale:
‘Cranes are mean. Cruel, you know? Just ask any frog or fish in the pond. A crane is a predator just like any other predator-sneaky, and opportunistic. Not one of them would have the patience for weaving, or for beauty for its own sake. A crane would make someone else do it for him. A mouse maybe. Or a beautiful spider. He'd work it nearly to death, and then he'd eat it.’
This may prove darkly portentous in Barnhill’s retelling, where the cruel animalistic behavior of the crane is also metaphorical for abuse. Barnhill’s tale hinges on the believability that the mother is dating a literal crane and, wonder upon wonders, she pulls it off beautifully. A Newbery Medal Winner for her absolutely stunning junior fiction novel, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, Barnhill has an incredible capacity for infusing childlike wonderment and whimsy into dark adult fiction that makes this novel work so successfully. While aimed at an adult audience, this is a story that would likely register equally well with anyone from teenagers on, having a sort of timeless and broad appeal much like folktales themselves.
‘I was nothing like my mother. I was everything like my mother. Both at the same time.’
Generational trauma is at the heart of this story, with the narrator hearing the long legacy of hard fathers and vanished women on the family farm. The mother explains it very plainly, insisting on it as literal fact despite the narrator questioning if this was just a metaphor:
“On the farm,” she said quietly, “mothers fly away like migrating birds. And fathers die too young. This is why farmers have daughters. To keep things going in the meantime, until it’s our time to grow wings. Go soaring away across the sky.”
What a legacy to have to live up to, especially in a town where her family is the source of gossip with more believable tales of her grandmother hopping a train to become strung out on drugs. All tales the mother dismisses as the typical misogynistic response to the inherent magic of women, yet she herself has not flown away in keeping with the timeline of farm mothers taking flight when their children reach the age of 5. Instead she weaves tapestries, which the daughter sells online under the fake name “Bruce. ‘My mother’s tapestries contained multitudes,’ she tells us of her mother’s artwork that has moved people to tears or break out in song, ‘her method of gathering materials was as haphazard and serendipitous as the way she lived the rest of her life…each item was stitched into the story.’ Barnhill nests the idea of creating narratives into her own story, reminding us that ‘art exists to transcend, transfix, and transform.’ This is a lovely sentiment, enlarged all the more considering The Crane Husband is itself transcending and transforming a familiar tale into a modern context about family and trauma.
‘No one person owned the farm. No one walked the farm. The farm belonged to machines and shareholders. No one loved it anymore. No one was tied to it anymore.’
The family legacy with the farm has been severed, however, as the family had to sell it off decade ago. ‘There was no farm anymore to fly from,’ the narrator considers, wondering if this is why their mother hasn’t followed the family tradition of flying away, ‘how can you run from your birthright when your birthright is gone?’ The farm now belonged to a conglomerate of stock-holders living far away and the rows and rows of corn are no longer tended by the hands of laborers and run entirely by machines. Drones police the skies while automated plows tend the fields, with living people only arriving once a year for a share-holder meeting to ‘pretend that they were still connected to the land.’ This dystopian farm setting probes fears of humans put out of work by machines, but also is representative of a world where magic and myths are fading such as the legacy of women transforming into birds. ‘Even birds weren’t allowed,’ we are told and the sky is entirely empty aside from the drones keeping anyone away, drones with sharp blades that could slice up a crane if it flew across the field, or the mysterious naked man that one night appeared in their barn bleeding from a run-in with the drones.
Barnhill also employs this lifeless farm as an expression of climate change. We see the industrialization of the farm leaving behind ‘the plowed-up remains of coyotes and foxes and birds littering the fields,’ while the drones are ‘devouring the world with their eyes.’ There is an unsettling tone built through menacing depictions of the natural world, the sky always oppressively empty, and even the stars are ‘so bright and sharp it hurt to look at.’ Spring seems to come earlier each year to this midwest town and ‘soon, people said, there would be no winter at all.’ As the methods of old, the storytelling of old, begins to vanish along with the mythology they carry, so too does the world as it is replaced by heartless machines and algorithms.
‘How can anyone survive that kind of love?’
The abuse of the planet is mirrored in the abusive relationships in the story. The mother tells of her father being a ‘hard’ man, of the ways he beat his wife until she finally flew away. This opens a cycle of excusing abuse, with the mother frequently bruised after encounters with brief lover. The gashes left on her body from the crane’s beak and talons during their time in bed (oh yes, Barnhill goes there) she dismisses as natural—he is a wild animal after all—which implies that she views the bruises from being hit during the night by what must be a man in the house as just the natural way of things as well. This harkens back to the original tale in which the man becomes abusive as his mysterious wife doesn’t produce enough art fast enough for him, and we see the mother deteriorating as she struggles to achieve a tapestry that satisfies the crane. Like the crane wife growing thinner as she uses up her feathers, the mother grows thinner without nourishment and the children go hungry. Yet she doesn’t seem to notice or care. ‘You can’t live on love, Mom,’ the daughter admonishes her, ‘it’s not possible.’
‘She was a flash of downy white, leaving the farm behind. Feathers and wings and all. And sky for days.’
Kelly Barnhill pulls off a nearly miraculous narrative here, stitching reality, myth, art and the power of storytelling into her own startling tapestry. The story moves slowly but engagingly, weaving the past and present together towards a shocking but well-earned climax that is certain to satisfy. Even at its most unsettling, Barnhill’s prose proves oddly comforting, seducing the reader forward with a rather dreamlike cadence full of striking imagery and rolling phrasing, even when the dreamlike nature becomes a waking nightmare. The characters are quite endearing too, from the narrator dodging Social Services to care for her charming little brother, to even the sinister crane who is handled with such expertise as to really bring his scenes to life regardless of how outlandish they would otherwise seem. Everything feels very natural, everything is expertly balanced, tight and taut across this 120pg novella, and Barnhill’s history working in children’s literature comes alive making this a fairy tale for adults that reads with a charm rarely felt beyond being an actual child reading the finest of imaginative junior fiction. I'm told the story bears resemblance to her previous novel, When Women Were Dragons, though here it is working as a retelling and done in a slight amount of space. The Crane Husband is a massive success and an unnerving foray into abuse and myth that has like left its feather in my heart and mind where they will stay for a long, long time.
4.5/5
‘I could make it beautiful. I could make everything beautiful. Art could change your life. Art could give you wings. And you could fly away. Don’t you want to fly away?’
March 3, 2023
The Crane Husband is a brilliant and lyrical retelling of The Crane Wife.
An unnamed fifteen-year-old girl lives with her mother and younger brother on the remains of what used to be family farmland. Now, an intimidating conglomerate owns the farmlands that surround their crumbling property.
While her mother works on her art to pay the bills, our heroine takes care of her brother and household matters.
One day, the girl’s mother returns home wrapped in the arms of a human-sized crane. It’s not unusual for her mother to bring home new partners since her father’s passing, so the girl assumes their affair will be just as fleeting. However, she soon realizes her mother is completely infatuated with the crane, who exudes a menacing air. The girl watches as her mother makes herself small while creating a masterpiece of art at the crane’s behest.
This short novel is both harrowing and beautifully written. I love magical realism, and this was no exception.
It discusses domestic violence quite a bit, so some readers may find it triggering. While it touches on dark subject matter, it is easy to become wholly enraptured reading this tale.
As the reader, you know what’s going on, but it’s oddly satisfying watching the main character fit all the pieces together and take her mother’s teachings to heart.
While I enjoyed The Girl Who Drank the Moon, I didn’t love it nearly as much as this one.
If you like folk/fairytale retellings, I’m almost positive you’ll enjoy this weird little gem as well.
Thank you to Tordotcom for providing an arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
https://booksandwheels.com
An unnamed fifteen-year-old girl lives with her mother and younger brother on the remains of what used to be family farmland. Now, an intimidating conglomerate owns the farmlands that surround their crumbling property.
While her mother works on her art to pay the bills, our heroine takes care of her brother and household matters.
One day, the girl’s mother returns home wrapped in the arms of a human-sized crane. It’s not unusual for her mother to bring home new partners since her father’s passing, so the girl assumes their affair will be just as fleeting. However, she soon realizes her mother is completely infatuated with the crane, who exudes a menacing air. The girl watches as her mother makes herself small while creating a masterpiece of art at the crane’s behest.
This short novel is both harrowing and beautifully written. I love magical realism, and this was no exception.
It discusses domestic violence quite a bit, so some readers may find it triggering. While it touches on dark subject matter, it is easy to become wholly enraptured reading this tale.
As the reader, you know what’s going on, but it’s oddly satisfying watching the main character fit all the pieces together and take her mother’s teachings to heart.
While I enjoyed The Girl Who Drank the Moon, I didn’t love it nearly as much as this one.
If you like folk/fairytale retellings, I’m almost positive you’ll enjoy this weird little gem as well.
Thank you to Tordotcom for providing an arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
https://booksandwheels.com
April 15, 2023
My complete review of The Crane Husband is posted at Grimdark Magazine.
The Crane Husband is an unsettling folk horror by World Fantasy Award-winning author Kelly Barnhill. This expertly written novella provides a frank depiction of domestic violence within a contemporary reimagining of the traditional Japanese folktale, Tsuru Nyōbō, or the Crane Wife.
There are many variations on the Crane Wife tale within Japanese folklore. A common version of the story involves a poor man who rescues an injured crane, nursing it to health before releasing it back into the wild. Soon afterwards, a beautiful woman appears at his doorstep. They fall in love and get married, but the couple are desperately poor. The wife is a talented weaver, and they build a business selling her handwoven clothing at the market. The weavings bring the couple prosperity, but the wife insists that her husband never watch her weave. The husband soon becomes greedy, forcing his wife to weave more and more, unsympathetic to her declining health. Unsatisfied with her progress, he spies on his wife and discovers that she is actually a crane plucking out her own feathers to weave into the loom. The crane wife sees him and feels betrayed by his broken promise. She flies away, never to return, and leaves her husband behind unable to earn a living on his own. The Japanese folktale has inspired a number of modern authors and artists, including a popular musical version by Portland-based indie rock band, the Decemberists.
Kelly Barnhill’s novella is narrated by a fifteen-year-old girl living in an old farmhouse in the American Midwest. Her father passed away when she was a young girl, leaving her widowed mother to care for her and her younger brother.
The Crane Husband takes place in a near future when the farmers’ jobs have been displaced by drones that work the cornfields. The family survives on income from the mother’s artistic weavings. However, the responsibility of caring for her children proves too much to bear, leaving the teenaged narrator to manage household finances and serve as primary caregiver for her younger brother.
Then one day the mother brings home a menacing six-foot-tall crane, with whom she has fallen in love. The bespectacled crane soon becomes violent toward the mother, who is constantly covered with cuts and bruises. Despite this abuse, the mother is unwaveringly devoted to her crane husband. She neglects her family and the world around her to focus on weaving her masterpiece, as demanded by the crane. Meanwhile, local social workers have become seriously concerned regarding the welfare of both children.
Although at first glance The Crane Husband may seem like a simple gender-swapped version of the traditional Japanese folktale, Kelly Barnhill’s story plunges deeper into violence and horror. The Crane Husband takes an unflinching look at the horrors of domestic violence, including both physical and emotional abuse. The cycle of cruelty extends to the children, who live in fear of the crane husband but are also afraid of being taken away to foster care.
The Crane Husband is the darkest work by Kelly Barnhill to date, her prose burning with increasing intensity as she immerses us in an all too realistic world of domestic violence and artistic obsession.
The Crane Husband is an unsettling folk horror by World Fantasy Award-winning author Kelly Barnhill. This expertly written novella provides a frank depiction of domestic violence within a contemporary reimagining of the traditional Japanese folktale, Tsuru Nyōbō, or the Crane Wife.
There are many variations on the Crane Wife tale within Japanese folklore. A common version of the story involves a poor man who rescues an injured crane, nursing it to health before releasing it back into the wild. Soon afterwards, a beautiful woman appears at his doorstep. They fall in love and get married, but the couple are desperately poor. The wife is a talented weaver, and they build a business selling her handwoven clothing at the market. The weavings bring the couple prosperity, but the wife insists that her husband never watch her weave. The husband soon becomes greedy, forcing his wife to weave more and more, unsympathetic to her declining health. Unsatisfied with her progress, he spies on his wife and discovers that she is actually a crane plucking out her own feathers to weave into the loom. The crane wife sees him and feels betrayed by his broken promise. She flies away, never to return, and leaves her husband behind unable to earn a living on his own. The Japanese folktale has inspired a number of modern authors and artists, including a popular musical version by Portland-based indie rock band, the Decemberists.
Kelly Barnhill’s novella is narrated by a fifteen-year-old girl living in an old farmhouse in the American Midwest. Her father passed away when she was a young girl, leaving her widowed mother to care for her and her younger brother.
The Crane Husband takes place in a near future when the farmers’ jobs have been displaced by drones that work the cornfields. The family survives on income from the mother’s artistic weavings. However, the responsibility of caring for her children proves too much to bear, leaving the teenaged narrator to manage household finances and serve as primary caregiver for her younger brother.
Then one day the mother brings home a menacing six-foot-tall crane, with whom she has fallen in love. The bespectacled crane soon becomes violent toward the mother, who is constantly covered with cuts and bruises. Despite this abuse, the mother is unwaveringly devoted to her crane husband. She neglects her family and the world around her to focus on weaving her masterpiece, as demanded by the crane. Meanwhile, local social workers have become seriously concerned regarding the welfare of both children.
Although at first glance The Crane Husband may seem like a simple gender-swapped version of the traditional Japanese folktale, Kelly Barnhill’s story plunges deeper into violence and horror. The Crane Husband takes an unflinching look at the horrors of domestic violence, including both physical and emotional abuse. The cycle of cruelty extends to the children, who live in fear of the crane husband but are also afraid of being taken away to foster care.
The Crane Husband is the darkest work by Kelly Barnhill to date, her prose burning with increasing intensity as she immerses us in an all too realistic world of domestic violence and artistic obsession.
March 6, 2026
In a Nutshell: A horror-fantasy with elements of surrealism. Retelling of the Japanese folktale ‘The Crane Wife’. Set in an imagined dystopian near-future. Understated yet mindblowing. Love how it handles the characters, the folktale, and even the dark theme. Suspension of disbelief required. Much recommended, but not to those who steer clear of weird stories. Check the triggers listed below if needed.
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Plot Preview:
I don’t know what I was expecting from this book, but I certainly wasn’t expecting THIS!
The story is a retelling of the Japanese folktale named “The Crane Wife”. But it delivers so much better!
Bookish Yays:
🖼 The story as a retelling: familiar yet different. The title indicates at the swap in the crane’s gender, but that’s not the only thing that has been swapped. The change in the identity of the manipulator, the separation of the crane and artist identities, the concept of ’sacrifice’ in love, and the ending all work in cohesion to present a much darker and more impactful narrative.
🖼 The originality of the plot. I don’t think I have read any story on domestic violence handled this way. It’s bizarre and compelling at once.
🖼 The representation of domestic violence and abusive relationships. Chilling, especially when it’s tough to figure out why the injured party is so content with the whole situation even at the cost of herself. If you are sensitive to this theme, don’t read the book unless you are in a strong headspace; it gets quite graphic.
🖼 The choice of narrator. I never thought such a story could come across as intense and unnerving given the youthfulness of the narrator, but her maturity (no thanks to her circumstances), her spunk in times of trouble, and her love for her brother and even for her mother despite the damage she does with her questionable choice of suitors, ensures that the young girl is a compelling character and the right person to tell this story.
🖼 The first-person narrative, containing barely any rambling and a good use of foreshadowing that doesn’t go too far. Brilliantly done.
🖼 Michael. A little fellow in a little role with a big impact. I sent him (and his brave elder sister) multiple virtual hugs while reading this; I just loved their bond!
🖼 The portrayal of the crane: so, so unsettling! His character detailing is outstanding despite being minimal. It’s fascinating to see how the plot makes clear his cockiness and his abusiveness though he doesn’t even have dialogues.
🖼 The depiction of the near-future timeline, which, sadly, feels like a very real possibility. 😢
🖼 All the emotions this book generates along the way: dread, concern, support, sadness, fury… I felt one with the narrative even though the narrative was so fantastical.
🖼 The questions this raises on love (of various kinds), and how far one can go for it – very thought-provoking.
🖼 The ending. No spoilers, so just know that it suits the story perfectly.
🖼 The cover art: stunning! And so perfect for the plot!
Bookish Okays:
🐦 The mother. Loved her brilliance as an artist but hated her lackadaisical attitude towards her children’s wellbeing and her blind passion for her abusive “crane husband”. She could be what youngsters these days call “delulu”, but I found her more obsessive, whether in her art or in her passion.
🐦 The lack of detailing for some of the plot points. There are many questions still buzzing in my head, which is both good and bad. Bad because I know I can get no answers for them. Good because the book hasn’t left me even after the last page – so rare these days.
🎧 The Audiobook Experience:
The audiobook, clocking at just 3 hrs 45 min, is narrated by Laura Knight Keating. She is brilliant, making sure that our heroic narrator’s strengths and vulnerabilities come across clearly through her voice. Unless you are uncertain of listening to surreal storylines and non-chronological narratives, you can easily opt for the audio version. But avoid the audio if you feel like such a whimsical plot might need you to indulge in a lot of back-and-forth while reading. I felt the need for this multiple times, so I had to loop back the audio by whole chapters at times.
Overall, I was just expecting a typical retelling that took an old folktale and jazzed it up for new audiences. But this went so far beyond my expectations that I am willing to let go of all the queries still buzzing in my head like peckish cranes.
Barnhill took me by surprise with her writing tone in this novel. I have read her only once before. ‘The Girl Who Drank the Moon’, a charming middle-grade fantasy with Christian elements, was a book I liked a lot but didn’t love because of its unanswered plot points. While this new retelling also has a lack of clarification on several inclusions, it is so different in terms of content and approach! I now feel like I must read more books by this author.
You don’t need to know the original story before reading this novel, but you will appreciate it better if you do. The novel does include the folktale in the dialogues of one of the characters, but it is the bare-minimum version.
Definitely recommended. At just 120 pages, this novella packs a whammy and can easily be read in one sitting. The book is strictly for adult readers despite its young protagonist, and will suit those who relish dark retellings with strong leads and aren’t bothered by unclarified plot points. This would also be a great option for book clubs.
4.5 stars, happy to round up for the audio version.
Content Warnings:
Domestic violence (mental and physical), parental abandonment, parental/spousal death, grief, child neglect.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I follow the Goodreads rating policy:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Lifelong favourite!
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - I loved the book.
⭐⭐⭐ - I liked the book.
⭐⭐ - I found the book average.
⭐ - I hated the book.
The decimals indicate the degree of the in-between feelings.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog || The StoryGraph || Instagram || Facebook ||
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Plot Preview:
A fifteen-year-old girl is forced to be the support of her family after the death of her father, taking care of the household as well as of her six-year-old brother Michael, while her mom, a talented but somewhat oblivious artist, weaves stunning tapestries to pay the bills. The mother randomly brought “guests” home, but none stayed for long. Until now. Her latest guest is a tall crane who seems to have captivated her heart even though the daughter finds him manipulative and abusive. Unbothered by his harsh behaviour, the mother ignores her work and her children, focussing solely on her crane paramour. The daughter knows that it is, yet again, up to her to save their family. But what can she do without alerting the authorities about their pathetic living conditions? Will she lose Michael to the foster care system? Can she save her mother before it is too late?
The story comes to us in the first-person perspective of the young nameless narrator.
I don’t know what I was expecting from this book, but I certainly wasn’t expecting THIS!
The story is a retelling of the Japanese folktale named “The Crane Wife”. But it delivers so much better!
Bookish Yays:
🖼 The story as a retelling: familiar yet different. The title indicates at the swap in the crane’s gender, but that’s not the only thing that has been swapped. The change in the identity of the manipulator, the separation of the crane and artist identities, the concept of ’sacrifice’ in love, and the ending all work in cohesion to present a much darker and more impactful narrative.
🖼 The originality of the plot. I don’t think I have read any story on domestic violence handled this way. It’s bizarre and compelling at once.
🖼 The representation of domestic violence and abusive relationships. Chilling, especially when it’s tough to figure out why the injured party is so content with the whole situation even at the cost of herself. If you are sensitive to this theme, don’t read the book unless you are in a strong headspace; it gets quite graphic.
🖼 The choice of narrator. I never thought such a story could come across as intense and unnerving given the youthfulness of the narrator, but her maturity (no thanks to her circumstances), her spunk in times of trouble, and her love for her brother and even for her mother despite the damage she does with her questionable choice of suitors, ensures that the young girl is a compelling character and the right person to tell this story.
🖼 The first-person narrative, containing barely any rambling and a good use of foreshadowing that doesn’t go too far. Brilliantly done.
🖼 Michael. A little fellow in a little role with a big impact. I sent him (and his brave elder sister) multiple virtual hugs while reading this; I just loved their bond!
🖼 The portrayal of the crane: so, so unsettling! His character detailing is outstanding despite being minimal. It’s fascinating to see how the plot makes clear his cockiness and his abusiveness though he doesn’t even have dialogues.
🖼 The depiction of the near-future timeline, which, sadly, feels like a very real possibility. 😢
🖼 All the emotions this book generates along the way: dread, concern, support, sadness, fury… I felt one with the narrative even though the narrative was so fantastical.
🖼 The questions this raises on love (of various kinds), and how far one can go for it – very thought-provoking.
🖼 The ending. No spoilers, so just know that it suits the story perfectly.
🖼 The cover art: stunning! And so perfect for the plot!
Bookish Okays:
🐦 The mother. Loved her brilliance as an artist but hated her lackadaisical attitude towards her children’s wellbeing and her blind passion for her abusive “crane husband”. She could be what youngsters these days call “delulu”, but I found her more obsessive, whether in her art or in her passion.
🐦 The lack of detailing for some of the plot points. There are many questions still buzzing in my head, which is both good and bad. Bad because I know I can get no answers for them. Good because the book hasn’t left me even after the last page – so rare these days.
🎧 The Audiobook Experience:
The audiobook, clocking at just 3 hrs 45 min, is narrated by Laura Knight Keating. She is brilliant, making sure that our heroic narrator’s strengths and vulnerabilities come across clearly through her voice. Unless you are uncertain of listening to surreal storylines and non-chronological narratives, you can easily opt for the audio version. But avoid the audio if you feel like such a whimsical plot might need you to indulge in a lot of back-and-forth while reading. I felt the need for this multiple times, so I had to loop back the audio by whole chapters at times.
Overall, I was just expecting a typical retelling that took an old folktale and jazzed it up for new audiences. But this went so far beyond my expectations that I am willing to let go of all the queries still buzzing in my head like peckish cranes.
Barnhill took me by surprise with her writing tone in this novel. I have read her only once before. ‘The Girl Who Drank the Moon’, a charming middle-grade fantasy with Christian elements, was a book I liked a lot but didn’t love because of its unanswered plot points. While this new retelling also has a lack of clarification on several inclusions, it is so different in terms of content and approach! I now feel like I must read more books by this author.
You don’t need to know the original story before reading this novel, but you will appreciate it better if you do. The novel does include the folktale in the dialogues of one of the characters, but it is the bare-minimum version.
Definitely recommended. At just 120 pages, this novella packs a whammy and can easily be read in one sitting. The book is strictly for adult readers despite its young protagonist, and will suit those who relish dark retellings with strong leads and aren’t bothered by unclarified plot points. This would also be a great option for book clubs.
4.5 stars, happy to round up for the audio version.
Content Warnings:
Domestic violence (mental and physical), parental abandonment, parental/spousal death, grief, child neglect.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I follow the Goodreads rating policy:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Lifelong favourite!
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - I loved the book.
⭐⭐⭐ - I liked the book.
⭐⭐ - I found the book average.
⭐ - I hated the book.
The decimals indicate the degree of the in-between feelings.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog || The StoryGraph || Instagram || Facebook ||
July 19, 2023
The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill is a Fairy Tale Retelling Blended with Magical Realism and a Sprinkle of Horror!
Is it okay to call a story that's dark and troubling fun? To love it despite the hard topics and triggers of domestic violence and passive-aggressive child neglect? You decide...
In Midwestern America a savvy teenage daughter, who manages the household and the care of her younger brother, has much to tell us about her talented artist mother and the strange looking new beau she brings home.
He's a six-foot crane wearing a man's hat, spectacles perched on his beak, with beady eyes, and a broken wing resting in a sling showing the distinctive design of her mother's beautiful stitchery artwork.
"You will call him Father".
"Fat chance." the daughter thought to herself...
The Crane Husband is a cleverly written contemporary retelling of the Japanese folk story "The Crane Wife" that flips the original on its ear. Or should I say its wing? Or its beak, perhaps?
The author's imaginative storytelling and engaging writing creates puzzle pieces in your head that slowly begin to move and fit together as you decipher the story. The occasional humorous comment from a fifteen-year-old protagonist puts a spin to the intended seriousness of this story, making it more digestible. In fact, it provides playful and lighthearted moments for the reader.
The audiobook is superbly narrated by Laura Knight Keating and between the writing and the narration the story has a whimsical feel. The voicing of the mother is especially well-done.
The Crane Husband is creative, original, and satisfyingly different. It's Magical Realism at its best with a special blend of genres that creates a winning read I can highly recommend.
5⭐
Is it okay to call a story that's dark and troubling fun? To love it despite the hard topics and triggers of domestic violence and passive-aggressive child neglect? You decide...
In Midwestern America a savvy teenage daughter, who manages the household and the care of her younger brother, has much to tell us about her talented artist mother and the strange looking new beau she brings home.
He's a six-foot crane wearing a man's hat, spectacles perched on his beak, with beady eyes, and a broken wing resting in a sling showing the distinctive design of her mother's beautiful stitchery artwork.
"You will call him Father".
"Fat chance." the daughter thought to herself...
The Crane Husband is a cleverly written contemporary retelling of the Japanese folk story "The Crane Wife" that flips the original on its ear. Or should I say its wing? Or its beak, perhaps?
The author's imaginative storytelling and engaging writing creates puzzle pieces in your head that slowly begin to move and fit together as you decipher the story. The occasional humorous comment from a fifteen-year-old protagonist puts a spin to the intended seriousness of this story, making it more digestible. In fact, it provides playful and lighthearted moments for the reader.
The audiobook is superbly narrated by Laura Knight Keating and between the writing and the narration the story has a whimsical feel. The voicing of the mother is especially well-done.
The Crane Husband is creative, original, and satisfyingly different. It's Magical Realism at its best with a special blend of genres that creates a winning read I can highly recommend.
5⭐
April 10, 2023
A disconcerting tale is laid out for our consideration here. The mother in this story is an accomplished weaver of exquisite and exotic tapestries, a talented artist. She has her own sheep, spins her own thread, and uses many other things in the creation of her artworks. Unfortunately, she takes less care in choosing the men she brings home from time to time. It can be a tricky tightrope for her two children to maneuver, but they manage fairly well until their mother brings home an exceedingly tall crane. She has found her true love at last, her feet barely touch the ground. The crane makes himself known, shedding feathers at a prodigious rate, squawking loudly, preening the mother with his beak to the point of injury, affixing the children with his dead beady eyes. It's no revelation that the kids would want to fly away.
'Art exists to transcend, transfix, and transform.'
'Art exists to transcend, transfix, and transform.'
October 2, 2023
Apparently having a crane for a husband sounds a lot cooler than it is. (Just think of all the low carbon travelling you could do!)
April 25, 2023
What a dark, sad little tale.
With her novella, The Crane Husband, Kelly Barnhill gives us a modern-day twist of the old Japanese folk story, The Crane Wife. Only instead of a crane masquerading as a woman to convince a man to marry her, in Barnhill’s version, a woman brings home a crane to play dad to her teenage daughter and young son.
The novella is written beautifully, and Barnhill’s storytelling is hypnotic. The eerie atmosphere she creates, the melancholic aura of the story, the sense of rising dread that pervades the narrative – it all serves to draw the reader under a surreal and gripping spell.
If you’re like me, a lover of fairy tales, you won’t want to miss it. It’s terrific.
My sincerest appreciation to Kelly Barnhill and Tordotcom for the physical advanced reading copy. All opinions included herein are my own.
With her novella, The Crane Husband, Kelly Barnhill gives us a modern-day twist of the old Japanese folk story, The Crane Wife. Only instead of a crane masquerading as a woman to convince a man to marry her, in Barnhill’s version, a woman brings home a crane to play dad to her teenage daughter and young son.
The novella is written beautifully, and Barnhill’s storytelling is hypnotic. The eerie atmosphere she creates, the melancholic aura of the story, the sense of rising dread that pervades the narrative – it all serves to draw the reader under a surreal and gripping spell.
If you’re like me, a lover of fairy tales, you won’t want to miss it. It’s terrific.
My sincerest appreciation to Kelly Barnhill and Tordotcom for the physical advanced reading copy. All opinions included herein are my own.
October 26, 2023
Fifteen-year-old nameless protagonist is the backbone of her family – she cooks, cleans, takes care of her little brother Michael, does the finances and basically has her mother's back so she can make her art, her tapestries. It's not unusual for the mom to bring lovers home, but one day she brings someone unusual - a six foot tall crane! And he's there to stay. The children don't like this new “father” but he takes their mother under his complete control for her to produce the artwork of her life. That he sucks out her life, her children, her health and everything out of her is just the beginning.
This was a short and sad read. I just recently realized I've read When Women Were Dragons by the same author so women turning free and flying away is kind of a central metaphor for her, I'm not sure I like it very much, though this book was OK for me.
Also, this is apparently the re-telling of the Japanese folktale The Crane Wife, which I haven't read before (and don't really intend to read in the future).
This was a short and sad read. I just recently realized I've read When Women Were Dragons by the same author so women turning free and flying away is kind of a central metaphor for her, I'm not sure I like it very much, though this book was OK for me.
Also, this is apparently the re-telling of the Japanese folktale The Crane Wife, which I haven't read before (and don't really intend to read in the future).
January 2, 2023
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Magical Realism + Retelling
This novella is a retelling of the folktale “The Crane Wife”. The story is narrated by an unnamed 15-year-old girl. She lives with her talented artist mother and her six-year-old brother, Michael, in a farm town. Her mother is constantly working in her studio or entertaining the numerous gentlemen with whom she continues to have affairs. None of these relationships last, though, except when the crane man shows up.
The girl gets worried about her mother, who seems to be fully enchanted by this new fling. What she thought would be like the others—a short fling—felt like something more. Being fully under the crane’s charm, the mother will isolate herself and weave her masterpiece, which was demanded by the crane. But the girl has to do something to get rid of the crane.
The beauty of magical realism is that the interpretation is always left up to the readers. After finishing this book, I read briefly about the original folktale, which sounded fascinating as well. The Crane Husband is a very atmospheric novella. It is surreal and, at times, even scary. The author’s writing is very beautiful and lyrical, which made the story even more enchanting. I think Kelly Barnhill did a great job with the characters. The story deals with themes like abuse, child negligence, the loss of a loved one, and depression. For a novella of this length, I believe the story has a lot of depth, and the magical aspects of both the plot and the narration will work together to make it a story that is never forgotten. I enjoyed it a lot.
I'm grateful for the advanced reader copy of this book that the publisher, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and NetGalley provided me.
Genre: Magical Realism + Retelling
This novella is a retelling of the folktale “The Crane Wife”. The story is narrated by an unnamed 15-year-old girl. She lives with her talented artist mother and her six-year-old brother, Michael, in a farm town. Her mother is constantly working in her studio or entertaining the numerous gentlemen with whom she continues to have affairs. None of these relationships last, though, except when the crane man shows up.
The girl gets worried about her mother, who seems to be fully enchanted by this new fling. What she thought would be like the others—a short fling—felt like something more. Being fully under the crane’s charm, the mother will isolate herself and weave her masterpiece, which was demanded by the crane. But the girl has to do something to get rid of the crane.
The beauty of magical realism is that the interpretation is always left up to the readers. After finishing this book, I read briefly about the original folktale, which sounded fascinating as well. The Crane Husband is a very atmospheric novella. It is surreal and, at times, even scary. The author’s writing is very beautiful and lyrical, which made the story even more enchanting. I think Kelly Barnhill did a great job with the characters. The story deals with themes like abuse, child negligence, the loss of a loved one, and depression. For a novella of this length, I believe the story has a lot of depth, and the magical aspects of both the plot and the narration will work together to make it a story that is never forgotten. I enjoyed it a lot.
I'm grateful for the advanced reader copy of this book that the publisher, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and NetGalley provided me.
![Profile Image for laurel [the suspected bibliophile].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1645808644i%2F7494844._UX200_CR0%2C6%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
December 13, 2022
omfg omfg omfg
What was this book? Why was I so revolted and yet I could not stop reading??
Like When Women Were Dragons, the book deals with motherhood and much stifling of emotions on the part of women until they just kinda...transform into something else and go away. Except in this book, the transformation comes to them, as their mother brings home a crane and proceeds to tell her two children that the crane is now their father and then has nasty crane-sex with him (although he might turn into a human at that point; regardless, there are a lot of feathers involved), and because he's a crane and a dude, he's an abusive asshat who literally gouges pieces of her away.
Anywho, it's a real dark fairy tale taking place in dystopian farmlands. While the main part of the book is about a mom shacking up with an abusive crane, other themes of childhood coping mechanisms and survival, older siblings forced to grow up too fast (and not really understanding what is going on but knowing survival is tied to control and stability), generational trauma and tradition, artwork, and the power of reputation and rumor in a small town emerge...all kinda centered on the theme of the meaning of escape.
What was this book? Why was I so revolted and yet I could not stop reading??
Like When Women Were Dragons, the book deals with motherhood and much stifling of emotions on the part of women until they just kinda...transform into something else and go away. Except in this book, the transformation comes to them, as their mother brings home a crane and proceeds to tell her two children that the crane is now their father and then has nasty crane-sex with him (although he might turn into a human at that point; regardless, there are a lot of feathers involved), and because he's a crane and a dude, he's an abusive asshat who literally gouges pieces of her away.
Anywho, it's a real dark fairy tale taking place in dystopian farmlands. While the main part of the book is about a mom shacking up with an abusive crane, other themes of childhood coping mechanisms and survival, older siblings forced to grow up too fast (and not really understanding what is going on but knowing survival is tied to control and stability), generational trauma and tradition, artwork, and the power of reputation and rumor in a small town emerge...all kinda centered on the theme of the meaning of escape.
March 20, 2023
Have you ever been like ‘I want to read the weirdest, most wtf novella, published like ever’?
I GOTCHU.
The Crane Husband is told from the perspective of a teenage girl, who has taken on the responsibility of raising her younger brother after her dad dies, and her mom seeks comfort in all the wrong places. & then one day, their mom comes home with a giant crane, insisting that her kids call him ‘Father’.
The juxtaposition of Barnhill’s beautiful lyrical writing and the bizarre + disturbing subject manner work in a way that will ensure this 120 page book stays in my head for a long time; whether I want it to or not 🙈
I GOTCHU.
The Crane Husband is told from the perspective of a teenage girl, who has taken on the responsibility of raising her younger brother after her dad dies, and her mom seeks comfort in all the wrong places. & then one day, their mom comes home with a giant crane, insisting that her kids call him ‘Father’.
The juxtaposition of Barnhill’s beautiful lyrical writing and the bizarre + disturbing subject manner work in a way that will ensure this 120 page book stays in my head for a long time; whether I want it to or not 🙈
April 9, 2023
The author writes, in her lovely acknowledgments page, that this short novel rose up from an image, and a corresponding mood. It reads this way. It's moody and captivating. The narrator, a fifteen year old girl who is trying to keep her family safe, has a captivating voice. The setting is a weird mix of never-changing rural landscape clashing with sterile corporate agribusiness. What the novel says about art and sacrifice and heritage is left in the realm of suggestion and speculation. There aren't any hard conclusions to be found here. I preferred it that way.
January 28, 2023
4.5 stars rounded up
The Crane Husband blends fantasy and horror in a novella about a teen girl trying to keep her little brother safe while her artistic mother becomes a victim of domestic violence at the hands of her new bird lover. It's disturbing but really well-executed and offers a different take on the story of The Crane Wife. It is about the impact of domestic violence, about child neglect and abandonment, and about having to grow up long before you have to. All couched within a fantastical framework. While I wanted a little bit more from the ending, I thought this was a very strong novella and the prose is very evocative. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.
The Crane Husband blends fantasy and horror in a novella about a teen girl trying to keep her little brother safe while her artistic mother becomes a victim of domestic violence at the hands of her new bird lover. It's disturbing but really well-executed and offers a different take on the story of The Crane Wife. It is about the impact of domestic violence, about child neglect and abandonment, and about having to grow up long before you have to. All couched within a fantastical framework. While I wanted a little bit more from the ending, I thought this was a very strong novella and the prose is very evocative. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.
May 23, 2023
I don't read much fantasy if that is what this is, but wanted to try something different. A novella seemed like a good starting point, not a major investment of time if I didnt want to finish. Funny thing though is that I did like it or rather was curious as to how it would end, so I kept reading.
the story has a dreamlike quality to it, suspension of belief a must, a familiarity with the Japanese folk tale of the Crane Wife would be advantageous. i stopped to familiarize myself with the tale.
Our narrator is a fifteen year old unnamed girl who has a great deal of responsibility for one so young. She takes care of the house, the bills, her creative flighty mother, but most importantly her six year old brother. it is the near future and only corporations own the farms, the corn, crops are guarded by drones. although they no longer own the farm they do own the house and some of the out buildings where her mother creates her art. After her fathers death they are struggling but they manage together. This all changes when their mother brings a crane home and insists they call him daddy.
the story has a dreamlike quality to it, suspension of belief a must, a familiarity with the Japanese folk tale of the Crane Wife would be advantageous. i stopped to familiarize myself with the tale.
Our narrator is a fifteen year old unnamed girl who has a great deal of responsibility for one so young. She takes care of the house, the bills, her creative flighty mother, but most importantly her six year old brother. it is the near future and only corporations own the farms, the corn, crops are guarded by drones. although they no longer own the farm they do own the house and some of the out buildings where her mother creates her art. After her fathers death they are struggling but they manage together. This all changes when their mother brings a crane home and insists they call him daddy.
May 28, 2023
4.0 Stars
Video Review: https://youtu.be/6Cu2IGMhVy4
This was an excellent literary, dark piece of magical realism. I loved how these used the metaphorical crane as a stand in for an abusive partner which made the difficult material more digestible. The writing was beautiful and I loved the ending. I would highly recommend this book to readers looking for a smart commentary on this difficult topic.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
Video Review: https://youtu.be/6Cu2IGMhVy4
This was an excellent literary, dark piece of magical realism. I loved how these used the metaphorical crane as a stand in for an abusive partner which made the difficult material more digestible. The writing was beautiful and I loved the ending. I would highly recommend this book to readers looking for a smart commentary on this difficult topic.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
February 12, 2023
Short but lovely, takes the story of the Crane Wife and twists them all around into a knot of something quite different. Speculative near future setting. There's a looseness to the metaphor that I appreciated. Still I wished there was a bit more meat to it, the protagonist feels a bit too much like a character that's repeated often in these stories and I wanted more for her.
June 30, 2023
A poetic, haunting retelling of the Crane Wife that examines the devastating results of abuse, codependency, and grief. Told in mesmerizing prose, The Crane Husband is an elegantly crafted cautionary tale of generational misfortune and artistic magic. It is an ode to our protagonists resilience and ability to protect what she holds dear, even after loosing so much. It is a novella that deals with grief and resentment in such a raw and authentic way; it’s pages are a feathery loom of emotion and sorrow. This is one of the best retellings that I have read.
November 5, 2023
But that's what mothers do. On the farm. We sprout wings and fly away.
Unsettling, harrowing and dark...
The Crane Husband is narrated from a fifteen year old's POV. She remains nameless throughout the story but we see that she's pretty much the primary caregiver of her six year old brother while their artistic mother works on her art and tapestries and has her long string of affairs that never last. But one day their lives are changed when she brings home a crane - their new "father".
Using a fantastic blend of magic realism and horror, Kelly Barnhill retells the Japanese story, The Crane Wife. I really wasn't expecting much from this novella because I hadn't heard of the author before, but it kept coming up on Libby so I thought I'd give it a try and I am so glad that I did.
With a gorgeously sorrowful and fairytale-esque writing style, Barnhill does a magnificent job at exploring themes of grief, domestic violence and generational trauma. This was definitely a sad read for me, but so masterfully written; I felt hypnotized by the writting. Barnhill also cleverly sets the story in a near dystopian future - a world with no farmers, just machines and drones - to really bring out the bleakness of the heartless world. This story is definitely going to stay with me for a long time.
I really enjoyed The Crane Husband and breezed through it in one sitting. I can't wait to read more from this author. If you're into weird fiction and magic realism, you should definitely give this one a try!
Rating: 4/5
April 12, 2023
4.5 Stars
’To the mothers who flew away.
And to those they left behind.’
This is a fairy tale, but not one for children. It is a story of ‘love’ - or what passes for love, what the mother in this story believes is love, and which her daughter believes otherwise. For a while, her daughter believes it is a temporary thing, as were so many others in the past years since her father died. But this crane that her mother brings home doesn’t seem to be inclined to leave anytime soon. And why should he, when her mother can’t see him for who and what he is? Her daughter is the one who protects her brother Michael, who is only six, who cares for him, making sure he is fed, and bathed and comforted. Meanwhile, she only sporadically attends school, and so a social worker becomes involved, and wants to meet with the mother, but this never happens.
There is much about the art her mother makes, or made until her obsession with the crane began. Over time, the marks he leaves on her body become more and more frequent. She has become a victim of his demands and his cruelty, through both emotional and physical abuse.
A beautifully written story that shares the bewitching power of art and love with a dark, but important, message.
January 14, 2025
Bizarre in so many ways
March 24, 2023
Kelly Barnhill has wowed me again with a contemporary retelling of The Crane Wife.
In Barnhill's reimagining, a 15-year-old girl in the American Midwest is the backbone of her family after her father dies when she's young. The girl has taken over the household management and money while also raising her young brother so her mom can continue to weave beautiful tapestries that art collectors greedily lap up.
After six years of just the three of them tucked away in their farmhouse, her mom brings home a six-foot fall crane and focuses solely on weaving a masterpiece demanded by the crane.
The girl is having trouble keeping food on the table as her mother abandons the art that has fed them and she begins to notice cuts and bruises on her mom; meanwhile, social services moves closer to their front door.
A lyrical story that is raw with heartbreak, domestic violence, and magical realism but also shares the power of love, sacrifice, and family.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
In Barnhill's reimagining, a 15-year-old girl in the American Midwest is the backbone of her family after her father dies when she's young. The girl has taken over the household management and money while also raising her young brother so her mom can continue to weave beautiful tapestries that art collectors greedily lap up.
After six years of just the three of them tucked away in their farmhouse, her mom brings home a six-foot fall crane and focuses solely on weaving a masterpiece demanded by the crane.
The girl is having trouble keeping food on the table as her mother abandons the art that has fed them and she begins to notice cuts and bruises on her mom; meanwhile, social services moves closer to their front door.
A lyrical story that is raw with heartbreak, domestic violence, and magical realism but also shares the power of love, sacrifice, and family.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
April 28, 2023
So addictive. Quite blunt at times but the writing is mesmerising and lyrical for a dark, disturbing story.
The book talks about a girl and her baby brother being neglected by their mother who’s suffering most days from domestic abuse.
The writing is so good that it gave me the creeps. Mildly horrifying, toxic adult characters and a good, or a rather unexpected realistic, ending made it quite the read.
The book talks about a girl and her baby brother being neglected by their mother who’s suffering most days from domestic abuse.
The writing is so good that it gave me the creeps. Mildly horrifying, toxic adult characters and a good, or a rather unexpected realistic, ending made it quite the read.
December 30, 2022
Gotta be in the mood for something really fucking weird when you read this one.
February 28, 2024
"Love is the path of least resistance, you see? It’s a lot more work to cause harm to someone who mistrusts you, or fears you. Or hates you. Love opens the city gates wide, and allows all manner of horrors right inside."
I don't read a lot of speculative fiction, so this took me a little bit to get into, and at first, I wasn't sure if I was enjoying it at all. Who was this crane, and why was the main character's mother taking him as a lover? Was this normal in this lightly dystopian setting? Did everyone take birds for mates, and why was this crane so particularly cruel?
As the story unraveled, though, I found myself drawn into it so intensely I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was interrupted at the 85% mark of the audiobook and couldn't get back to it soon enough because I had to know how it would end! And gradually, I realized that this wasn't a story that was supposed to make perfect sense, because it isn't a story about the crane. It's a story about generational trauma, and cycles of abuse, and the things that people — especially women — will tolerate in the name of love.
I enjoyed this so much. I can't wait to read more from this author.
✨ Content warnings for:
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September 5, 2024
Todavía estoy pensando sobre cómo me siento con respecto al libro. En esencia me pareció bello y terrible por partes iguales, me gusta mucho cómo escribe la autora, pero sentí que me faltó algo para terminar de amarlo.
Cuando la madre de dos chicos lleve a casa una grulla ambos creen que será momentáneo, pero los días pasan y la grulla sigue ahí. También los extraños cortes y heridas en la madre y su obsesión con un telar que está tejiendo.
Me gustó mucho el estilo de la autora, solo la había leído con Cuando ellas fueron dragones que me fascinó, no sabía qué esperar en una novella. Es un retelling de La grulla agradecida en estos tiempos con un giro interesante, me gustó el cómo la autora lo usó para tratar el tema y todo el simbolismo detrás.
Es uno de esos libros incómodos de leer porque sabes que va a pasar algo desagradable y no puede ser evitado, además el mismo tono narrativo tiene ese toque triste y oscuro. Lo encontré bastante similar a Cuando ellas fueron dragones, pues ambos fueron narrados por una persona joven que estaba intentando procesar el mundo frente a ella y dándole sentido. Y, como dije, hay algo en el tono de la autora, en su forma de narrar, que es melancólico, probablemente viene de que ambos libros fueron narrados desde una versión más adulta de personaje mientras contaba su infancia. Por ese motivo, tenía un tono triste y nostálgico al rememorar todos esos momentos que narró.
Fue una historia bastante triste sobre la familia y el sacrificio, el peso que cargan los hijos mayores cuando sus padres no pueden protegerlos y lo que estamos dispuestos a hacer por las personas a las que amamos. Resultó angustiante vivir el miedo y la tensión de la protagonista al saber que su hermano menor y ella estaban en peligro y que, a la vez, no podían hacer nada por salvar a su madre.
El tema de la madre fue complicado, porque no era que no quisiera a sus hijos, pero, al mismo tiempo, tampoco parecía disfrutar tanto del ser madre y no era capaz de cuidar de ellos como debería haberlo hecho. Y todo eso incluso antes de la llegada de la grulla. Toda su personalidad volátil se justificaba con el hecho de que era artista y porque quedó viuda muy joven, lo que solo se llevó al extremo con la llegada de la grulla.
En este retelling nos enfrentamos a una versión que tocó el tema de la violencia doméstica con el hombre siendo la grulla en vez de la esposa. Fue un relato en el que la protagonista vio cómo su padre fue perdiéndose en esta relación con la grulla y no pudo hacer nada por evitarlo, al final solo pudo luchar por asegurarse de que su hermano se mantuviera a salvo. Además, la misma madre le narró a la protagonista cómo la familia tenía un historial de padres abusivos y madres que migraban, que se transformaban en aves para poder escapar aunque eso implicara dejar a su familia atrás.
El hombre grulla es una novela corta que reinventa el cuento de La grulla agradecida desde una perspectiva moderna en la que una adolescente debe lidiar con una grulla que lleva su madre a la casa.
Cuando la madre de dos chicos lleve a casa una grulla ambos creen que será momentáneo, pero los días pasan y la grulla sigue ahí. También los extraños cortes y heridas en la madre y su obsesión con un telar que está tejiendo.
"Es algo muy triste esto del amor verdadero (...). Las ovejas nunca dejan de quererme, y es por eso que puedo causarles dolor. El amor es el camino que ofrece menos resistencia, ¿entiendes? Cuesta muchísimo más trabajo hacerle daño a alguien que no confía en ti o que te tiene miedo. O que te odia. El amor hace que se abran las puertas y que puedan pasar toda una serie de horrores".
Me gustó mucho el estilo de la autora, solo la había leído con Cuando ellas fueron dragones que me fascinó, no sabía qué esperar en una novella. Es un retelling de La grulla agradecida en estos tiempos con un giro interesante, me gustó el cómo la autora lo usó para tratar el tema y todo el simbolismo detrás.
Es uno de esos libros incómodos de leer porque sabes que va a pasar algo desagradable y no puede ser evitado, además el mismo tono narrativo tiene ese toque triste y oscuro. Lo encontré bastante similar a Cuando ellas fueron dragones, pues ambos fueron narrados por una persona joven que estaba intentando procesar el mundo frente a ella y dándole sentido. Y, como dije, hay algo en el tono de la autora, en su forma de narrar, que es melancólico, probablemente viene de que ambos libros fueron narrados desde una versión más adulta de personaje mientras contaba su infancia. Por ese motivo, tenía un tono triste y nostálgico al rememorar todos esos momentos que narró.
"¿Cómo se puede huir de tu legado si tu legado ya no existe?"
Fue una historia bastante triste sobre la familia y el sacrificio, el peso que cargan los hijos mayores cuando sus padres no pueden protegerlos y lo que estamos dispuestos a hacer por las personas a las que amamos. Resultó angustiante vivir el miedo y la tensión de la protagonista al saber que su hermano menor y ella estaban en peligro y que, a la vez, no podían hacer nada por salvar a su madre.
El tema de la madre fue complicado, porque no era que no quisiera a sus hijos, pero, al mismo tiempo, tampoco parecía disfrutar tanto del ser madre y no era capaz de cuidar de ellos como debería haberlo hecho. Y todo eso incluso antes de la llegada de la grulla. Toda su personalidad volátil se justificaba con el hecho de que era artista y porque quedó viuda muy joven, lo que solo se llevó al extremo con la llegada de la grulla.
"Quizá nunca conseguimos huir. Quizás todos los lugares son lo mismo".
En este retelling nos enfrentamos a una versión que tocó el tema de la violencia doméstica con el hombre siendo la grulla en vez de la esposa. Fue un relato en el que la protagonista vio cómo su padre fue perdiéndose en esta relación con la grulla y no pudo hacer nada por evitarlo, al final solo pudo luchar por asegurarse de que su hermano se mantuviera a salvo. Además, la misma madre le narró a la protagonista cómo la familia tenía un historial de padres abusivos y madres que migraban, que se transformaban en aves para poder escapar aunque eso implicara dejar a su familia atrás.
El hombre grulla es una novela corta que reinventa el cuento de La grulla agradecida desde una perspectiva moderna en la que una adolescente debe lidiar con una grulla que lleva su madre a la casa.
October 25, 2022
With all the fine praise this book has received, I wonder if I'm the outlier here, but in any case The Crane Husband didn't work for me at all. I found the writing style to be simple, boring and formulaic, with some of the more striking phrases seeming out of place and much too melodramatic. The dialogue felt both stiff and weirdly poetic, and I often felt as if I were being bludgeoned by heavy, clumsy metaphors.
This book read more like a YA novella from a first time writer than as the serious piece of literary fiction the author seemed to be aspiring to. All that being said, I'm sure this book has an audience, and that the people for whom it's intended will no doubt enjoy their time with it. The Crane Husband ultimately wasn't for me, and it's a shame, because there's something there that I found really enticing regardless of the what I perceive to be its shortcomings.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital review copy of this book.
This book read more like a YA novella from a first time writer than as the serious piece of literary fiction the author seemed to be aspiring to. All that being said, I'm sure this book has an audience, and that the people for whom it's intended will no doubt enjoy their time with it. The Crane Husband ultimately wasn't for me, and it's a shame, because there's something there that I found really enticing regardless of the what I perceive to be its shortcomings.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital review copy of this book.
March 2, 2024
Dark, Depressing, and Beautiful!
January 27, 2024
Dublin Literary Award 3/70
3,5*
Love is the path of least resistance, you see? It´s a lot more work to cause harm to someone who mistrusts you, or fears you. Or hates you. Love opens the city gates wide, and allows all manner of horrors right inside.
“The Crane Husband” é uma reinterpretação do conto japonês “The Crane Wife”, em que um homem salva um grou que mais tarde lhe surge sob a forma de mulher, que graças às suas belas tapeçarias de penas o deixa rico. Na versão de Kelly Barnhill, a protagonista de 15 anos vê a mãe viúva e fiandeira a trazer um novo namorado para casa, um grou, exigindo que ela e o irmão mais novo lhe chamem pai. Recorrendo ao realismo mágico, “The Crane Husband” é uma obra sobre a perpetuação da violência doméstica, algo que passa de geração em geração como uma tradição, cabendo à jovem pôr fim a esse ciclo de forma igualmente brutal. É um livro bem escrito e bem pensado, com uns toques de YA, tiques de “not like the other girls”, tensão de telefilme dramático e ambiente de história de terror, tudo a contribuir para a construção da heroína justiceira, ou anti-heroína, dependendo da moral de cada leitor.
She looked at me. Her eyes were strange to me then. Hollow. And I was so young, much younger than I let myself believe. I didn't have the context. And I couldn't possibly understand. Looking back on it now, I recognize those eyes. I've seen those same eyes on different women in the years since - my girlfriends, my roommates, my coworkers. I saw them on a neighbor once, before I called the cops on her husband. I myself have had those eyes. But only once. She blinked. The hollowness remained. I shivered. I didn't know what I was seeing.
3,5*
Love is the path of least resistance, you see? It´s a lot more work to cause harm to someone who mistrusts you, or fears you. Or hates you. Love opens the city gates wide, and allows all manner of horrors right inside.
“The Crane Husband” é uma reinterpretação do conto japonês “The Crane Wife”, em que um homem salva um grou que mais tarde lhe surge sob a forma de mulher, que graças às suas belas tapeçarias de penas o deixa rico. Na versão de Kelly Barnhill, a protagonista de 15 anos vê a mãe viúva e fiandeira a trazer um novo namorado para casa, um grou, exigindo que ela e o irmão mais novo lhe chamem pai. Recorrendo ao realismo mágico, “The Crane Husband” é uma obra sobre a perpetuação da violência doméstica, algo que passa de geração em geração como uma tradição, cabendo à jovem pôr fim a esse ciclo de forma igualmente brutal. É um livro bem escrito e bem pensado, com uns toques de YA, tiques de “not like the other girls”, tensão de telefilme dramático e ambiente de história de terror, tudo a contribuir para a construção da heroína justiceira, ou anti-heroína, dependendo da moral de cada leitor.
She looked at me. Her eyes were strange to me then. Hollow. And I was so young, much younger than I let myself believe. I didn't have the context. And I couldn't possibly understand. Looking back on it now, I recognize those eyes. I've seen those same eyes on different women in the years since - my girlfriends, my roommates, my coworkers. I saw them on a neighbor once, before I called the cops on her husband. I myself have had those eyes. But only once. She blinked. The hollowness remained. I shivered. I didn't know what I was seeing.
March 22, 2026
“I was nothing like my mother. I was everything like my mother. Both at the same time.”
The Crane Husband depicts the fabric of a family fraying and unraveling. The mother, an artist, comes from a long line of farmers. Rumor has it that the men were “hard” and at some point the women turned into birds and flew away.
The family lives in the farmhouse even though the conglomerate owns and runs the farm with drones. The eldest daughter assumes responsibility for the family’s needs while the mother is constantly working on a new tapestry. She is consumed by her weaving and swooning over her crane husband.
The reader must suspend disbelief or ascribe to the ideas of magical realism, for the “man”the mother loves is literally a crane. The novel is based on the folktale The Crane Wife, but it is so much more than a retelling. It is a story with depth and despair. The myths and legends of weavers as magical beings are threaded throughout the novel and it has the same vibe as Black Woods Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey (The Snow Child). The novel was brief, but beautifully crafted.
The Crane Husband depicts the fabric of a family fraying and unraveling. The mother, an artist, comes from a long line of farmers. Rumor has it that the men were “hard” and at some point the women turned into birds and flew away.
The family lives in the farmhouse even though the conglomerate owns and runs the farm with drones. The eldest daughter assumes responsibility for the family’s needs while the mother is constantly working on a new tapestry. She is consumed by her weaving and swooning over her crane husband.
The reader must suspend disbelief or ascribe to the ideas of magical realism, for the “man”the mother loves is literally a crane. The novel is based on the folktale The Crane Wife, but it is so much more than a retelling. It is a story with depth and despair. The myths and legends of weavers as magical beings are threaded throughout the novel and it has the same vibe as Black Woods Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey (The Snow Child). The novel was brief, but beautifully crafted.
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