Invisible Pleasures
Mary Frances Zambreno. American Fantasy. $25
244p. ISBN: 0-9610352-4-2
Each of the eighteen stories of Invisible Pleasures focuses
on females who face adversity. A fabulous cover painting, Symphony Fantastique
by Douglas Klauba, balances a woman between the light and the dark fantastic and
proves highly appropriate as the stories turn toward the shadows more often than
light. Zambreno leaves her most indelible impression when indulging her wickedly
dark wit in stories like "Aunt Concetta's Cat" (in which three children learn
some lessons from an elderly auntie and a cat that always comes back) and "The
Last One Left" (where the tables are turned on a rapist). She even skewers
authorhood itself in "Watching Goldfish Die". The author has a doctorate in
medieval literature and several of the stories are historical fantasy. In "A
Craving for Oysters" a noblewoman calls on the ghost of her dead husband for
aid. A Saxon woman seeks to stop bloodshed between her father and husband and
makes a supremely difficult decision after consulting an old wise woman in
"Choices" Even a sword and sorceress tale like "Luck of the City" is comes out a
cut above the usual when adventure is melded with historical detail, in this
case -- sewers. There's often more nuance in a Zambreno story than her
straightforward style at first suggests. She plays with the themes of a woman's
work never being done and the importance of family and generational ties -- and
the lack of them in modern life -- in "The Ghost in the Summer Kitchen." The
mini-mystery "The Little Girl in the Picture," in which two Catholic schoolgirls
uncover the joys of primary source research, offers a rewarding if not
intellectually demanding read. Many of the tales in this debut collection were
first written for young readers and Zambreno's work, although never challenging,
is almost always enjoyable. -- Paula Guran
(Originally published in Fantasy #2, Spring 2006)