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A review by monty_reads
Fairest Flesh by K.P. Kulski
2.0
2.5 stars.
This book meant well.
At the very least, it certainly had a lot on its mind. An uneasy, not-at-all successful blend of historical fiction, slasher novel, and fairy tale, Fairest Flesh sort of exists as a weird inverse of Garth Risk Hallberg’s mammoth City on Fire. Where Hallberg’s book really needed to be cut in half to streamline its narrative, K.P. Kulski instead tries to cram so much into Fairest Flesh’s 200 pages that she asks the reader to take a series of unsupported leaps in logic that ultimately don’t pan out. With 100 extra pages, the story’s fabric could have been stronger and more satisfying.
But I can admire Kulski’s intent.
She takes the admittedly compelling real-life story of Hungary’s Erszébet Báthory, the 16th Century noble who’s widely considered to be the most prolific serial killer in history, and spins it into a fictional narrative. With (supposedly) 650 victims to her name between the years 1590 and 1610, Báthory is certainly a figure ripe for a horror novel. Add in the oogy legends that she supposedly bathed in the blood of virgins to stay young or had vampiric tendencies, and it’s sort of surprising Báthory hasn’t shown up in horror fiction before now.
But here’s what else Kulski tries to tackle in, again, just over 200 pages:
Witchcraft
Incest
Epilepsy
Hungary’s war with the Ottoman Empire
The “Snow White” story
Social ostracism
Ancestral rivalries
Orphan children who may or may not be royalty
And that’s just off the top of my head.
Báthory’s eventual trial is used as a sort of half-hearted framing device that pops in and out of the book but doesn’t actually add up to much, and by the end, the entire story just ends up toppling under the weight of everything Kulski tries to do.
But it really didn’t have to be this way. There’s absolutely room for everything in my earlier list in a book long enough for Kulski to do justice to it. She even admits in an Author’s Note at the end that she could only do so much research “before losing both the story and [her] sanity.”
That may be true. But in a clear case of breadth over depth, she also didn’t include enough of all the other stuff to leave readers with a story that resonates.
This book meant well.
At the very least, it certainly had a lot on its mind. An uneasy, not-at-all successful blend of historical fiction, slasher novel, and fairy tale, Fairest Flesh sort of exists as a weird inverse of Garth Risk Hallberg’s mammoth City on Fire. Where Hallberg’s book really needed to be cut in half to streamline its narrative, K.P. Kulski instead tries to cram so much into Fairest Flesh’s 200 pages that she asks the reader to take a series of unsupported leaps in logic that ultimately don’t pan out. With 100 extra pages, the story’s fabric could have been stronger and more satisfying.
But I can admire Kulski’s intent.
She takes the admittedly compelling real-life story of Hungary’s Erszébet Báthory, the 16th Century noble who’s widely considered to be the most prolific serial killer in history, and spins it into a fictional narrative. With (supposedly) 650 victims to her name between the years 1590 and 1610, Báthory is certainly a figure ripe for a horror novel. Add in the oogy legends that she supposedly bathed in the blood of virgins to stay young or had vampiric tendencies, and it’s sort of surprising Báthory hasn’t shown up in horror fiction before now.
But here’s what else Kulski tries to tackle in, again, just over 200 pages:
Witchcraft
Incest
Epilepsy
Hungary’s war with the Ottoman Empire
The “Snow White” story
Social ostracism
Ancestral rivalries
Orphan children who may or may not be royalty
And that’s just off the top of my head.
Báthory’s eventual trial is used as a sort of half-hearted framing device that pops in and out of the book but doesn’t actually add up to much, and by the end, the entire story just ends up toppling under the weight of everything Kulski tries to do.
But it really didn’t have to be this way. There’s absolutely room for everything in my earlier list in a book long enough for Kulski to do justice to it. She even admits in an Author’s Note at the end that she could only do so much research “before losing both the story and [her] sanity.”
That may be true. But in a clear case of breadth over depth, she also didn’t include enough of all the other stuff to leave readers with a story that resonates.