Was (original 1992; edition 1999)

by Geoff Ryman

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900	15	23,649	(3.97)	38
WAS is the story of Dorothy. Orphaned as a child in the 1870s, she goes to live in Kansas with her Aunty Em and Uncle Henry. They face drought and poverty. They face each other. Alone, abused, Dorothy meets an itinerant actor called Frank and inspires a masterpiece. From the settling of the West and the heyday of the Hollwywood studios to the glittering megalopolis of modern Los Angeles, WAS is the story of all our childhoods.… (more)

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Member:	pdej
Title:	Was
Authors:	Geoff Ryman
Info:	Flamingo (1999), Edition: paperback / softback, Paperback
Collections:	2023 deaccession, Your library
Rating:
Tags:	fiction, read

Work Information

Was by Geoff Ryman (1992)

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▾Member reviews

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Showing 1-5 of 15 (next | show all)

This novel is beautiful, disturbing, intriguing, challenging. We are all so familiar with the Wizard of Oz--primarily through the film, but also through the books--that we may think there is nothing new to be said. (Certainly not after Maguire's Wicked came out.) But Geoff Ryman has visualized the real lives of Dorothy, of L. Frank Baum, of Judy Garland (indirectly) and of new characters whose lives are enriched because of the story that each of the others has told. How did Dorothy come to live with her aunt and uncle? Life in a land that was black-and-white was difficult at first, horrendous later. And what happened to her later? I finished reading this novel months ago and scenes still haunt me, both in a positive and a negative sense. I admire Ryman's imagination and his prose. (

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AnaraGuard | Nov 1, 2020 |

Wanted to like this more, as it is, I love Ryman's ideas, and look forward to reading more of his work. But truth be told, I'd forgotten I'd read this one at all... (

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Loryndalar | Mar 19, 2020 |

I don’t think many readers will stick around to the end of this dark, depressing, re-imagining of the Wizard of Oz story. It skips back and forth in time between 1) Dorothy Gael, a sexually abused orphan at Aunt Em and Uncle Henry’s homestead in Zeandale, Kansas; 2) Jonathan, a young actor dying of AIDS; 3) Frances Gumm, aka Judy Garland, who has an overbearing stage mother and a father who can’t keep his hands off teenage boys; 4) Bill, a psychologist who treats both an elderly Dorothy and Jonathan.

Dorothy and Jonathan both “check out” and slip mentally into Oz, also known as “Was”, meaning what could have been if they had had a happy life, instead of “Is”, what really happened. I read all the way to the end to find out what happened, and I wish I could say it was worth it.
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memccauley6 | May 3, 2016 |

Geoff Ryman clearly demonstrates his prowess as a writer with his novel Was. This is a tragic exploration of the Dorothy/Oz culture of L. Frank Baum from both an historical and modern perspective.

Ryman chooses the voice of a fictional inspiration for Baum's story, that of Dorothy Gael, who is orphaned due to a diphtheria epidemic, and is sent to live in Kansas with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. That story explores the benign neglect of Dorothy and the eventual destruction of what had been an innocent, intelligent, creative soul under the weight of religious zeal, ignorance, and the inability to control primal needs.

As a counterpoint to that tragedy, Ryman also introduces the character of Jonathan, with whom we journey from his boyhood struggle with autism through his tragic demise as an AIDS sufferer.

The story is told with an honest, compelling narrative, beautiful in its delivery, rending in its simplicity. Highly recommended. (

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fiverivers | Dec 13, 2014 |

I love this book with its interlinked stories all based around the Wizard of Oz. There is the real life Dorothy, growing up in amongst poverty and abuse in 1870s Kansas. There is Jonathan, the gay actor dying of AIDS in the 1980s, obsessed with the Wizard of Oz since childhood. There is Bill working in a 1950s asylum. And there is a little bit about Judy Garland playing Dorothy in the film. It's pretty grim reading in parts, and really quite bleak. It gets a little bit too fanciful towards the end, but as a whole is a great read. (

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AlisonSakai | Aug 24, 2013 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Geoff Ryman	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Jennings, Kathleen	Cover artist	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Pappas, Cassandra J.	Designer	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Rembert, Daniel	Cover designer	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Belongs to Publisher Series

Fantasy Masterworks (43)

Was inspired by

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Gaylactic Spectrum Award (Winner – Hall of Fame – 2002)

World Fantasy Award (Nominee – Novel – 1993)

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JoMA Mythic Fiction Reading List

Publishing Triangle 100 Best Lesbian and Gay Novels

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Canonical title

Original title

Was

Alternative titles

Original publication date

People/Characters

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Epigraph

This is the use of memory: For liberation-not less of love but expanding

Of love beyond desire, and so liberation

From the future as well as the past. Thus, love of a country begins as attachment to our own field of action

And comes to find that action of little importance

Thought never indifferent. History may be servitude, History may be freedom

--T.S. Elliott, Four Quarters

Dedication

Dedicated to It

First words

During the spring and summer I sometimes visited the small Norwegian Cemetery on a hgh hill overlooking a long view of the lower Republican Vally.

Quotations

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Original language

English

Canonical DDC/MDS

823.914

Canonical LCC

PR6068.Y74

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (2)

Geoff Ryman bibliography

Was (novel)

▾Book descriptions

WAS is the story of Dorothy. Orphaned as a child in the 1870s, she goes to live in Kansas with her Aunty Em and Uncle Henry. They face drought and poverty. They face each other. Alone, abused, Dorothy meets an itinerant actor called Frank and inspires a masterpiece. From the settling of the West and the heyday of the Hollwywood studios to the glittering megalopolis of modern Los Angeles, WAS is the story of all our childhoods.

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Book description

The haunting, magical, wildly original novel explains the lives of several characters entwined by The Wizard of Oz-both the novel written by L. Frank Baum and the iconic, strangely resonant 1939 film. It is the story of the "real" Dorothy Gaelk an orphan living a hardscrabble life with abusive relatives on a Kansaws frontier settlement, and of the kindly substitute teacher who decides to write the story of the life she ought to have had. Was is also the story of Judy Garland and her unhappy fame. It's about Jonathan, an actor now dying of AIDS, whose intense attachment to OZ dates back to his troubled childhood. And it's the story of Jonathan's therapist, whose work at an asylum also unwittingly intersects the path of the Yellow Brick Road. From the Great Plains to glittering Hollywood, Was traverses the American landscape to reveal the whirling funnel cloud at the core of our personal and cultural fantasies. It is a powerful, moving story of human imagination to transcend the bleakest circumstancrs.

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