In Misery’s Wife, Joan Tierney weaves a folkloric tale of magic, love, luck, sorrow, and determination. Capturing the cadence of folklore is a feat that always impresses me. I’ve only found a few authors who can really pull it off, like Angela Carter, Catherynne Valente and A.G. Slatter. Authors who attempt this have to scale back their prose and rely on timeworn tropes like the rule of threes, while still giving readers enough of a sense of what the world looks like and how it functions. Fairy tales and folk lore arrive after centuries of being honed by countless story tellers and I marvel at writers who can achieve that feeling all on their own, in a much shorter period of time.
Much to their parents’ sorrow, Elixane and her three sisters were born to live extraordinary lives. The three oldest sisters were snatched up by magical kings looking for wives. Elixane was left to grow up, alone, in their wake. Years later, Elixane must travel to her sisters’ kingdoms on a daunting rescue mission when she gets a message from her sister, Dores, who was taken by the King of Misery. The King of Misery can only love obsessively, jealously. And, like Bluebeard, the King of Misery’s love is invariably fatal. So off Elixane goes to do the impossible and save her sister. Her only companions are Luck and Jinx, who she does not know have been keeping an eye on her since her birth.
With Elixane, we travel to the Kingdom of the Sea, the Kingdom of the Sky, and the Kingdom of the Forest, as well as the deeply unsettling Kingdom of Misery. Elixane is a natural fixer, clever and determined to put things to rights. Luck helps in his inconsistent but always timely assistance. Jinx is also a vital partner, though her help is rarely the kind anyone would ask for. While Luck makes sure Elixane has what she needs at the right moment, Jinx’s rougher guidance ends up being exactly what Elixane needs to get herself to the heart of the Kingdom of Misery.
The end of the novel, in which Elixane puts an end to a war between Sea and Forest that has gone on so long no one knows why they’re fighting, is less tonally consistent with the first three-quarters of the novel. I also wouldn’t say that Misery’s Wife ends with a moral lesson like a traditional tale. Sure, it’s probably not a good idea to marry the first magical king who comes for you—but the sisters who married the King of the Sea and the King of the Sky find love and happiness with their devoted husbands. If there is a moral in Misery’s Wife, it’s not an individual one (apart from taking care with misery/Misery), but rather one for people in general about refusing to surrender to curses and bad love and wars that never end.
Readers who enjoy the prose of folklore and original magic will enjoy Misery’s Wife.