A review by marywahlmeierbracciano
The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill

dark mysterious medium-paced

5.0

Kelly Barnhill has molded an ancient Japanese folktale into a semi-futuristic Midwestern warning.  A small family lives on a plot of land with a barn—the adjacent farmland is owned by a conglomerate which uses automated machines to grow monocultures, fields patrolled by drones to keep even the birds away.  The widow is a prolific textile artist whose woven tapestries elicit extreme responses, her current work-in-progress inspired by her live-in lover, a foreboding crane.  Narrated by the woman’s fifteen-year-old daughter, this visceral retelling explores the limitations of domestic life, the contradictions of love, and the price of inheritance.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Gaslighting, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Death, Grief, Animal death, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, and Blood

Minor: Terminal illness, Gun violence, and Murder