My fourth book for the RIP Challenge was Saints and Strangers, a collection of short stories from Angela Carter. I first discovered Carter years ago with another of her collections, The Bloody Chamber, and have been in love with her writings ever since. She had a gift (I use the past tense since sadly, Carter died in 1992) for taking folk and fairy tales and retelling them in a fashion that is both sensual and macabre, theatrical and understated. Her use of language is just exquisite, like a sweet lyrical narcotic that puts you under its spell – a literary Green Fairy.

In Saints, she delves into the untold tales of several notable and unknown figures from history and folktale, including Lizzie Borden, a woman tormented by mental illness and a gluttonous stepmother, in the hours before the murders; a Lancashire maid turned whore and petty theft who finds herself living amongst the Indians in colonial Virginia; and Edgar Allan Poe, his alcoholism and peculiarities having roots farther back than one might imagine, living among a traveling theater troupe with his mother.

However, my two favorite stories were ‘Peter and the Wolf’, a retelling of the famous tale with a very human twist; and ‘Black Venus’, a glimpse into the life of Jeanne Duval, the mistress of the poet Baudelaire – a story which reminded me of Wide Sargasso Sea.

My final book for the challenge will be The Thirteenth Tale, a novel I’ve been looking forward to reading ever since first hearing about it on Heather’s blog. Saving it until last has been my reward for completing this challenge.