Book Review: "St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves" By Karen Russell

This collection of short stories was a lucky find for me, because I was looking on the shelves for books by Mary Doria Russell, came across this book by Karen Russell, and was instantly enchanted by the title St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves—how could I not pick it up with a title like that?

It reminded me of all the childhood times when adults reproached us for bad manners or wild behavior and would ask, "Were you raised by wolves?!"

As it turns out, the girls of St. Lucy's literally have been (like Mowgli in The Jungle Book) raised by wolves, and the institution exists to help them adapt to the human world. Some girls can, but some are so set in their wild ways and so homesick for pack life that they cannot adapt. It is a strange and ominous alternative reality and struck me as a commentary on the isolation of modern life; a lot of our ancestors had much less privacy in their homes and communities but may also have suffered less from loneliness.

Another story that caught my attention was "Z.Z.'s Sleepaway Camp for Disordered Dreamers," which caters to some truly unusual sleep-related problems; you won't find children like this at your ordinary summer camp:

There's Felipe, a parasomniac with a co-incidence of spirit possession. He caught his ghost after stealing a guanabana from a roadside tree, unaware that its roots had wound around a mass grave of Moncada revolutionaries. He's been possessed by Francisco Pais ever since. This causes him to sleep-detonate imaginary grenades and sleep-yell "Viva la Revolucion!" while sleep-pumping his fist in the air. He is a deceptively apolitical boy by day.

Or you could try "from Children's Reminiscences of the Westward Migration," which sounds like a typical tale of a family who pull up stakes and move West in hopes of more land or riches or a better life. And so it is...except that the father of these children happens to be a Minotaur, just like the one in Greek mythology, and causes no end of consternation on the trail, especially since he stands "an impressive eighteen hands high" and can hitch himself to the wagon and pull it.

Russell has a gift for beautiful and startling language and always seems to end a story just before I thought it should end, with the result that I wanted more. MUCH more. This may not suit the taste of every reader, but it will have me searching the shelves for more of her work.

By Mary Anne Ellis | Librarian Ⅰ, Southern History Department, Central Library