Cassandra Parkin

Biographical note:  Cassandra Parkin has a Master’s degree in English Literature from York University, and has been writing fiction all her life – mostly as Christmas and birthday presents for friends and family. She is married with two children, has so far resisted her clear destiny to become a mad old cat lady, and lives in a small but perfectly-formed village in East Yorkshire. “New World Fairy Tales” is her first published book.

BIC Basic

EAN13:  9781844718818
ISBN:  9781844718818
Author:  Cassandra Parkin
Title:  New World Fairy Tales
Series:  Salt Modern Fiction
Product class:  BC
Language:  eng
Audience:  General/trade
BIC subject category:  FA
Publisher:  Salt Publishing
Pub date:  15-Dec-11
Extent:  176pp
Height:  198 mm
Width:  129 mm
Thickness:  12 mm
Weight:  264 gms
Supplier:   Gardners Books
Supplier:   Ingram Book Group
Supplier:   Inbooks (James Bennett)
Availability:  NP
Price:  GBP 8.99
Price:  USD 14.95
Rights:  World

Short description/annotation:  From the glass towers of Manhattan to the remoteness of the Blue Ridge mountains; from the swamps of Louisiana to the jaded glamour of Hollywood, New World Fairy Tales reclaims the fairy tale for the modern adult audience. A haunting blend of romance and realism, these stripped-back narratives of human experience are the perfect read for anyone who has read their child a bedtime fairy story, and wondered who ever said these were stories meant for children.

Main description:  In contemporary America, an un-named college student sets out on an obsessive journey of discovery to collect and record the life-stories of total strangers. The interviews that follow have echoes of another, far more famous literary journey, undertaken long ago and in another world.

Drawing on the original, unexpurgated tales collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, six of their most famous works are re-imagined in the rich and endlessly varied landscapes of contemporary America.

From the glass towers of Manhattan to the remoteness of the Blue Ridge mountains; from the swamps of Louisiana to the jaded glamour of Hollywood, New World Fairy Tales reclaims the fairy tale for the modern adult audience. A haunting blend of romance and realism, these stripped-back narratives of human experience are the perfect read for anyone who has read their child a bedtime fairy story, and wondered who ever said these were stories meant for children.

Table of contents:
Interview #4
Interview #9
Interview #15
Interview #17
Interview #27
Interview #42

View excerpt as PDF:

Click here to view a sample (643 KB)

Excerpt from book:  

Interview #4

— Ella Orlando
New Orleans, Louisiana

So, my story? Well, it’s your project, of course, but I don’t think there’s much to tell. Married twice, widowed once, two daughters by marriage. I’ve never liked the word ‘stepchild’; it’s a hard, ugly word. And no, I’ve never called myself a stepmother either. Yes, that’s the photo — rather worn and crumpled. He carried it all round town, you see, trying to find me, while I ran home to hide. The wildness of youth, although at the time I thought I was so old … My dear, I do apologise. When we’re young, we run; when we’re old, we ramble. Well, let’s start at the beginning — with the first time I got married.

Abbeville, 1964. Harry and I, drinking coffee in a diner, watching the rain. A long-haired couple, barefoot, even though it was pouring, stood at the bus stop kissing. When I looked at Harry, he was watching me watching them.

‘I’ve never kissed you like that,’ he said.

‘You have,’ I reminded him.

‘But not in public.’

‘So?’

He sighed.

‘Oh, Ella, do I seem too old to you?’

‘No,’ I said and took his hand. The rain kissed the window. He was thirty-six years older than me.

‘I’m plenty old enough to be your father.’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘I’ve been married twice before.’

‘I knew that when we met.’

‘And I’ve got the girls . . .’

His daughters, Cindy and Beth. He hadn’t married
their mother.

‘Why would that matter?’

‘It’s not much to offer, is it?’ he tried to laugh. ‘But for what it’s worth, Ella — for what I’m worth — I’m all yours.’

‘I know,’ I said. Hot nights and stolen afternoons; motels and friend’s houses and the back seat of his car. It meant something different back then. I was risking a lot — afraid he’d never call again, afraid I’d get caught — but I wanted to make him happy.

‘I mean,’ he said, ‘I’ll marry you, if you want to.’ He kissed my hand. ‘Would you like to? What do you think?’

I hadn’t expected that. Sex simply wasn’t something you did with a friend of your father, married twice before, whose last dalliance walked out on him to go and find herself in California. Not if you wanted a ring on your finger afterwards, anyway.

‘Yes,’ I said.

Oh, I know I’ve made him sound vile, but truly, he wasn’t. He was loving, vulnerable, funny and clever, wise and charming and strong. I really don’t think he knew, that day he proposed, that he was ill.

We had eight months before it got really bad — the pain breaking through the morphine, sheets soaked through with sweat. Even after the company folded — we’d had to leave the area after the wedding, it never ran right without him there — we were happy.

I nursed him myself, of course I did.

‘You’re sure you can do this?’ he’d ask, nights when we’d sat up waiting for the dawn, and the nurse and the next morphine shot. I held his hand.

‘Yes,’ I said.

Then he was gone and I had a failed business, a pile of bills, and two girls.

Our girls.

My girls, now. Pale faces and solemn eyes.

I vowed in the churchyard I’d make it up to them. I’d do everything for them, make them the centre of my world.

‘If you need to come home . . .’ My mother, caught between love and satisfaction at being proved right. She drew hard on her cigarette. ‘But not his children. They can go to his sister’s.’

‘I’m staying with them,’ I said.

‘You’re mad,’ she told me. ‘You don’t have to.’

Their faces, so expectant and trusting. My heart turned over.

‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘Don’t make me choose, Mom, because I will choose them. I mean it.’

‘You’re serious?’ She blew out smoke, looked at me in disbelief. ‘You actually think you can raise those girls by yourself?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Unpublished endorsement:  A beguiling collection of present-day fables that effortlessly transcend their folk origins.

Jonathan Pinnock

Unpublished endorsement:  A joyous celebration of humanity in all shapes and sizes, infectious in its enthusiasm and stunning in its ambition. It's magical, funny, tragic, fierce, soft, cutting, and eminently readable.

A J Kirby