Letters from an Imaginary Country
Worlds are constructed from tender possibilities in Theodora Goss’s alluring, unforgettable short story collection Letters from an Imaginary Country.
“You’re going to be dead in twenty-four hours. Would you like to save the world?” This question is posed to a waitress in devastated future Chicago in one tale; her “yes” initiates her rebirth in innumerable historical forms. She spends the most time as Guinevere, falling in love with Arthur and premourning the necessity of the betrayal to come. Elsewhere, Anne de Bourgh finds a doorway into other works in Jane Austen’s canon, rejoicing in the secrets afforded to those “for whom there can be no happy endings.” Miss Havisham is a beloved mother in another story, and yet another tale finds the daughters of classic villainous scientists communing. Goss’s are the spaces where marginalized and dismissed characters are invited to thrive.
In these scintillating works of boundless imagination, new nations are birthed from thought experiments, leading to real kidnappings and deaths. The great-granddaughter of an afflicted woman who was relegated to side show performances investigates her ancestor’s murder, pulling her out of the shadows. And Goss herself forms a relationship with the version of herself left behind when her family fled Hungary, forming a rich sisterhood and musing
our lives are a collaboration with fate, and the best we can hope for is a hand to hold in the darkness, a voice on the other side of uncertainty.
Investing in liminal spaces, the stories also trouble through what happens when rapacious imaginations aren’t held in check: A white witch takes over England, partially in the name of postwar women’s liberation, but possibilities turn into horrors as her icy reign consumes all.
Letters from an Imaginary Country is an invigorating short story collection that fleshes out forgotten characters and gives form to abandoned dreams.
Reviewed by
Michelle Anne Schingler
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
