Title: The Absurd Burden of Family: A Cautionary Tale

Author: HS. Alvaurence / S. Alvaurence

Genre: Dark Fantasy

 

The young Lady Eugenia was as willful as she was beautiful and liked nothing more than to escape her confines and dance with the faeries in the wood. When her nighttime revelries produce a half-faerie child, Simon, Eugenia quickly marries and gives birth to a second, cherished son, Daniel.

She lives a privileged life, but when her faerie lover returns and tricks her, kidnapping Daniel, Eugenia’s world collapses, and she grows increasingly demented in her efforts to find him. However, when Daniel appears years later, it becomes horribly apparent, especially to Simon, that the madness has only just begun…

The Absurd Burden of Family is a clever and imaginative novella that begins in ethereal fairy-tale style but swiftly evolves into a story of dark cruelty and subliminal complexity that owes much to the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.

The Absurd Burden of Family is no pastiche, however, although the authors’ prose is as gorgeously ornamented and as wickedly insightful as any traditional tale, with some lovely old-fashioned rhetorical flourishes.

Her curious and absorbing narrative, unfolded through short, vivid chapters and rooted in magical fantasy and timelessly archaic in setting, has a fresh, intriguing feel and contemporary relevance.

Nonetheless, she absolutely nails the playful irony and the light, lyrical tone familiar to standard fairy tales. Her omniscient narrator tips a knowing, satirical wink to the reader, lending a mischievous veneer to Eugenia’s hideous conduct and derangement.

The authors signpost early on that Eugenia has a savage streak, although, in the beginning, she presents as amusingly capricious and self-absorbed. This alters with the arrival of Simon, whom she rejects and brutalizes in an attempt to disguise his inhuman half.

The relationship between Eugenia and Simon is complex, freighted with resentment and loathing toward themselves and each other, resulting in a toxic, manipulative co-dependency. Their portrayals, while brushed with humor, are full of depth and poignancy. Both characters invite sympathy and frustration, and, as in fables, their emotional states are revealed more through their behavior.

Contrastingly, Daniel’s personality is more flamboyant, and his motivations are obvious. His sudden reappearance could have taken the narrative down several pathways. The authors take a rewarding route for the reader, ratcheting up the dramatic irony toward Eugenia into a long-overdue series of comeuppances.

Although The Absurd Burden of Family retains its sorcery once Daniel returns, there is a clear narrative shift that offers subtextual commentary on tangled family dynamics, dangerously domineering mothers, and ostensibly disappointing, ungrateful offspring.

Daniel is an unpleasant yet damaged character whose degeneracy and lack of empathetic connection are offset by comic energy and excuses. Interestingly, like Eugenia, his overt vindictiveness is driven by rejection and grief, emotions that also torment Simon.

The authors introduce a number of strands that weave through the story without resolution. This ambiguity works for some subplots but less so for others. There are a few underdeveloped areas in the novella under a layer of whimsicality.

Additionally, Simon’s change of moniker to Dr. Terrance Buckley, while understandable in his quest to forge a life away from Eugenia, is not always carried through with continuity.

Notwithstanding, referring to “The Lady” and “The Doctor” subtly strips Eugenia and Simon of their identities as they are consumed by Daniel’s psychodrama and their own emotional fallibilities.

The novella is beautifully and thoughtfully presented with a delightful series of charmingly classic illustrations that enhance and complement the story and characters.

The Absurd Burden of Family: A Cautionary Tale is a darkly enchanting and captivating little book. Finely written, with a touch of parody and a gloss of grotesquerie, the Alvaurences have produced a bewitchingly good debut novella.

 

 

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