The Witch: And Other Tales Re-Told

A young man with memory issues tries to track down the girl who left a shoe at his house after a party. An agent for the government comes to take a village’s children. An overprotective father alienates his daughter. A charismatic author marries a young woman, who begins to suspect he’s not all that he appears. A woman befriends a stray dog that talks to her.

Some narratives are universal, being retold time and again with new wrinkles and new insight to offer about the modern world. The lessons and morals behind fairy tales make them easy fodder for retelling, and Jean Thompson has redefined several classics in her own style with The Witch: And Other Tales Re-Told. But, unlike most retellings, Thompson’s focus isn’t updating old tales; it’s getting to the heart of those original narratives by reexamining them with a modern lens. Recasting a foster mother as the witch in Hansel and Gretel or the big bad wolf as a cyber-predator offers new opportunities to connect with and process these timeless narratives. Admittedly, I couldn’t always tell which stories were being retold (some were far more obvious than others), but either way, each story had something significant to say.