Strictly temporary arrangements - "The Pigeon Wife" by Samantha H. Chung
BogiReads brings you the daily speculative reading recommendation of editor Bogi Takács.
Today's recommendation -
Author: Samantha E. Chung
Title: “The Pigeon Wife”
Venue: F&SF, Nov/Dec 2023 (Edited by Sheree Renée Thomas)
Type: Short story – not sure of the word count, I read it in print
Themes: Fantasy, contemporary, folktale retelling, anthropomorphic animals, labor
Where to read: Buy ebook on Weightless
I promised to share my January favorite story on the paid tier earlier.
--drumroll--
This was my favorite story I read in January! (Which included a bunch of late-2023 stories too, and not all of the actual 2024 ones.)
It’s a fairytale retelling and I am generally skeptical of those, but here everything worked so well. It’s the ultimate in “the personal is the political.” The narrative shows us an entire world with its unfamiliar and yet eerily familiar social dynamics, on both the personal and the society-wide levels... and yes, it is about literal pigeon husbands.
“It’s only temporary,” I told Amber. “Until I can find a sustainable career.” (Famous-last-words vibes.)
So well done, and great on the sentence level too, both eloquently and elegantly told.
Until next time,
Bogi.