Kelly Link’s stories never go where you think they’re going to go, which is a true magic trick to me. They’re always a little longer or shorter than you think they’ll be, or their plots turn from one kind of story into another, or the voice warps in some ineffable way to leave you wondering just what it was you’ve been reading this whole time. I can picture each of them in my mind like physical objects, a cross between a LeMarchand’s Box and a Fabergé egg, dazzling and a little unsettling. ‘Magic for Beginners’ is the one that’s had the biggest impact on my writing, in the way it offers up glimpses of a larger universe that never feel teasing but instead like offers to the reader’s imagination—as though she’s saying ‘go forth and see what it creates in your own mind, if you so desire.’
First published in Magic for Beginners, Small Beer Press, 2005. Read it online here
A Personal Anthology 