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Birthday Reviews: Mary Robinette Kowal’s “Just Right”

Birthday Reviews: Mary Robinette Kowal’s “Just Right”

Cover by Sandro Costello
Cover by Sandro Costello

Mary Robinette Kowal was born on February 8, 1969. Originally a puppeteer, she began publishing fiction in 2004, with her first novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, arriving in 2010.

In 2008, she won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writers and has gone on to win the Hugo Award three times, each in a different category. In 2011, she won the Hugo for Best Short Story for “For Want of a Nail.” She won for Best Related work for season seven of Writing Excuses, a podcast she produces in collaboration with Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Jordan Sanderson, and in 2014 for her novelette “The Lady Astronaut of Mars.” She has served as both Secretary and Vice President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and continues to volunteer for the organization in various roles.

“Just Right” was Mary Robinette Kowal’s first sale, and it appeared in The First Line in Summer 2004.

On the surface it tells the story of a woman who is dealing with the strange eccentricities of her six year old son. Celia’s husband, Lou, usually handles the morning rituals because Celia leaves each day to teach school. With the start of Summer vacation, however, she has suddenly thrown into the morning domestic routine and learns that her son, Mason, likes to do things in very specific, seemingly childish ways. When Celia stop playing along, Mason throws a very atypical temper tantrum.

While “Just Right” seems like a slice of life tale, it really is a very effective short horror story. Celia doesn’t understand what is happening because she is missing a very basic piece of information.

The effectiveness of the story comes from the banality of Celia situation. Anyone with children has experienced the seemingly random meltdowns when a child doesn’t get its way and learns how to handle the child. In this case, Celia is learning that the typical methods of raising her son aren’t always effective, although she is unaware of the cause.

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My surprise date with Amber Benson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Pat Rothfuss, and Terry Brooks

My surprise date with Amber Benson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Pat Rothfuss, and Terry Brooks

So yesterday afternoon I got a phone call. It was from the Madison, WI area and I was like: I don’t know anyone in Madison. So I let it go to voicemail.

A few minutes later, I get a private message on FaceBook…

Cool surprise number 1: It was Pat Rothfuss. He’s like: give me a buzz. So I do (realizing that the missed phone call was probably from him). Pat answers and says there’s been a bit of a mix-up and he’s sorry for the short notice, but would I like to be on his new Geek & Sundry show, The Story Board.

What follows is a dramatic presentation of the two seconds that followed that question:

Me to anyone watching at that moment: O.o

Me in my head: Hell yeah, I’ll be on your show.

Me on the phone: I’d be delighted.

So we exchange all the details. I knew about his new show. A few weeks ago, I’d watched part of Episode 1 with urban fantasists Diana Rowland, Emma Bull, and Jim Butcher. And back then, I was all like: man it’d be cool to be on a show like that.

Little did I know…

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Josh Wimmer Reviews Shades of Milk and Honey

Josh Wimmer Reviews Shades of Milk and Honey

milkhoney_fnlcoverShades of Milk and Honey
Mary Robinette Kowal
Tor (304 pp, $14.99, trade edition June 2011)
Reviewed by Josh Wimmer

If you have read anything about Shades of Milk and Honey, then you have seen it described as “Jane Austen, but with magic” or something along those lines. That is pretty much unavoidable. The novel, the first by Hugo nominee Mary Robinette Kowal, isn’t just written in a style and voice resembling that of the British author’s Regency-era romances, but also features sisters – one pretty, one smart – yearning for suitable suitors; a low-key but loving father who wants to see his girls married because he can’t provide for them forever; a cavalcade of potential husbands of various sorts; and a lot of house parties. In other words, the book takes plenty from Pride and Prejudice and the rest of Austen’s oeuvre.

What it adds is a mild but meaningful undercurrent of fantasy, and a slightly more modern-day message than might be found in the early-19th-century works that inspired it. Jane Ellsworth is unmarried and, at age 28, likely to remain that way. To recommend her, she has her wits, her emotional steadiness, and her skill with glamour – the magical crafting of visual and audible illusions, typically for aesthetic purposes. All fine qualities, but perhaps not enough to make up for her plain appearance (which Jane resolutely and admirably refuses to enhance with glamour).

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