Title: The Crane Husband

Author: Kelly Barnhill

Publisher: Tordotcom 2023

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 120

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Spring TBR; 52 Book Club - Book starts with “the”

“Mothers fly away like migrating birds. This is why farmers have daughters.”

A fifteen-year-old teenager is the backbone of her small Midwestern family, budgeting the household finances and raising her younger brother while her mom, a talented artist, weaves beautiful tapestries. For six years, it’s been just the three of them—her mom has brought home guests at times, but none have ever stayed.

Yet when her mom brings home a six-foot tall crane with a menacing air, the girl is powerless to prevent her mom letting the intruder into her heart, and her children’s lives. Utterly enchanted and numb to his sharp edges, her mom abandons the world around her to weave the masterpiece the crane demands.

I randomly picked this one up from the New Releases shelf at the library. And I was so glad that I did. This is a very strange slim novella based on a reimagining of a classic folklore story. Right away we are dropped into a world that seems just like our own except that our narrator’s mother has brought home a crane to be their new Father. Very strange indeed. Over the next 100 pages, we slowly have to come to terms with the fact that there’s a crane/man living in the house disrupting the usual goings on in the family. Ultimately this a very sad story of a broken family.

Next up on the TBR pile: