Passing Strange, Hey Presto, and Caligo Lane, by Ellen Klages

[rachelmanija]

“Passing Strange” is a standalone historical fantasy novella, mostly set in San Francisco in 1940. In the present day, an elderly woman sells the original chalk painting of a pulp horror magazine cover, an action which is clearly part of an elaborate, years-spanning plan. Then the story goes back in time to when the painting was created, and focuses on the queer women who have created a vibrant community despite having to live partly (but not entirely) in hiding.

I absolutely loved this story, but it’s hard to review because a lot of it is unpredictable and more fun to discover unspoiled. For instance, while the rough outline of what happens at the end is somewhat predictable, other fairly basic plot elements, such as who the love story is about, take a while to become clear.

It’s full of Dick Francis-worthy fascinating details about all sorts of things – how to use fish to make fixative for a chalk painting and why you need to, laws against women wearing fewer than three items of feminine clothing, what people called avocados and pizzas in 1940 (alligator pears and tomato pies) and where you’d go to get them in San Francisco, how to magically rearrange space with origami – and it’s all both fun to read about and necessary to the plot. The characters and place and milieu feel incredibly real and vivid, and the language is lovely.

Contains period-typical homophobia, sexism, racism, violence, and past child abuse. But it’s not about how people are ground down and destroyed by oppression and trauma, it’s about how people survive and thrive and find happiness and build community within a system that doesn’t even acknowledge their humanity, and so is a story that was particularly good to read right now.

“Hey Presto” and “Caligo Lane” are short stories about supporting characters from “Passing Strange,” and are both in Klages’ collection Wicked Wonders.

“Hey Presto” is about Polly, a teenage girl who wants to be a scientist and whose father is a stage magician, and is about how they begin to repair their previously distant relationship when she has to sub in for his assistant. It’s sweet and has nice stage magic details. (Note: I’m reviewing it as part of FF Friday only because of its connection with “Passing Strange;” to my recollection, Polly’s sexual orientation never comes up one way or another in either story.)

“Caligo Lane” is a lovely, heartbreaking short story about Frannie and her magical shortcut-creating origami. Either it’s set several years after “Passing Strange” or isn't quite consistent with it, as her abilities seem significantly stronger here. It has a long, beautiful description of her doing a work of topographical magic that’s clear and detailed enough to read as an instruction manual, and hypnotic enough to be a spell itself.

Wicked Wonders

Passing Strange

Comments

[anotherslashfan]

I read Passing Strange last week and I agree with you on every point you make here. It is a wonderful novella, and strikes a perfect balance between heavy subject matter and positive stories.

[larryhammer]

I do need to learn how to magically rearrange space with origami.

[rachelmanija]

There are very detailed instructions in "Caligo Lane."

[larryhammer]

I shall have to track that one down.

[kore]

I think I heard about Passing Strange before -- it sounds lovely.

[kore]

Yeah, apparently I BOUGHT IT in June. Go my memory. /o\

[ambyr]

If you haven't read her children's books, I recommend them highly. (And need to pimp them, because I may be requesting them for YT this year!)

[rachelmanija]

I haven't. I find atom bomb-related stuff depressing.

[ambyr]

That's a good reason to avoid The Green Glass Sea and White Sands, Red Menace, for sure. I will say that Out of Left Field is set in the late 1950s, stands on its own just fine, and includes only a brief one-sentence mention of the protagonist's mother having worked on the bomb many years ago--so if you do decide you want more Klages, you could skip straight to that. It's set in SF and has a cameo by a Passing Strange character.

[rachelmanija]

Oh, I hadn't heard about that one. That sounds good.

[kore]

It is 1946. World War II is over, ended by the atomic bomb that Dewey Kerrigan's and Suze Gordon's scientist parents helped build. Dewey's been living with the Gordons since before the war's end, before her father died, moving south with them to Alamogordo, New Mexico. At the White Sands Missile Range, Phil Gordon is working on rockets that will someday go to the moon; at home, Terry Gordon is part of the scientists' movement against the Bomb.

SOLD. I love NM Lab-era stuff (grew up in Santa Fe).

YT?

[klages]

What is YT?

[skygiants]

I wanted to love this book so much - the setting and the details are so great! - but unfortunately I could not get over the fact that "trapped forever in a painting with your beloved and nobody else" sounds to me more like a screaming nightmare than a happy ending...

[rachelmanija]

They're not, though. They have an exchange about exactly that. The painting transports them to somewhere like the painting, presumably with other people since they make sure they have money to spend, which wouldn't be necessary if they were just going to spend eternity alone in a ballroom. I think the painting is just a gateway and the thing that holds their bodies/life force in place.

[skygiants]

Hm, I read that as 'a world within the painting that feels like the real world, but is not real and is contingent on the existence of the painting' -- though my assumptions may absolutely be colored by past experiences with this trope.

[rachelmanija]

I'm not sure it's 100% clear on the mechanics, but I took it as "It's a real world, but their existence within it is contingent on the existence of the painting." I recall there being a flat-out statement about them not being trapped inside a painting, and Franny mentions that some ancestor of hers got to San Francisco by a similar method.

[nenya_kanadka]

That first one might be exactly what I need right now! And what a gorgeous cover.

Caligo Lane timeline

[klages]

Caligo Lane is set three years after Passing Strange (1943 and 1940, respectively), and by then Franny (and Babs) have figured a few more things out about ori-chizu.