Kyra Wilder
Author of Little Bandaged Days: A Novel
Works by Kyra Wilder
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The book is a little strange because the main character never divulges the names of her husband and children, just mentioning them by an initial. E, B and M. I have never seen this in a book before.
It was quite a dark book, the MC’s mental health declined when she moves to Geneva with her husband and he is working all hours while she is looking after her small children.
I could relate on some level and I am sure a lot of readers could. It was sometimes an uncomfortable, heartbreaking and show more intense read. show less
It was quite a dark book, the MC’s mental health declined when she moves to Geneva with her husband and he is working all hours while she is looking after her small children.
I could relate on some level and I am sure a lot of readers could. It was sometimes an uncomfortable, heartbreaking and show more intense read. show less
Gloss by Kyra Wilder
The Golden Apples of the Sun*
A review of the Les Fugitives paperback (February 24, 2025).
In Greek mythology, the Hesperides are three nymphs who are tasked with guarding the tree of the gods which bears the golden apples of immortality. The orchard has a further guardian in the hundred-headed dragon Ladon. In the myth of the Labours of Hercules, the 11th labour is that of Hercules being tasked with stealing the golden apples.
Kyra Wilder's modern adaptation of the Hesperides mythology has three young women with eating disorders who have entered a farm based treatment facility called Golden Apples. The farm is run by a rather mysterious man named Lee Laton. A nearby neighbour has a dog named Hercules. Lee's treatment procedure involves the preparation of sometimes very elaborate meals which are often "force-fed" to the patients in game/test-like situations. As part of the farm work the patients must constantly polish the apples on the trees, but are admonished to not pick or eat them.
See paintingat https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/GardenHesperides_Burne...
Painting of The Garden of the Hesperides (1870-1873) by Edward Burne-Jones. Image sourced from Wikipedia by Edward Burne-Jones - preraphaelitepaintings.blogspot.com, Public Domain, Link.
Wilder builds a suspenseful, sometimes humorous, sometimes caring, sometimes fearful, story by a plot which has ongoing flashbacks and flashforwards. Many of the chapters are subtitled with the timing of them being hours or weeks or months before "the trial." For the longest time we don't know what the trial is about, so it is left to our imagination. Instead we observe the lives of the three women in a time after they have left the Golden Apples Farm. They are often withdrawn and it is not clear how much they are actually cured. Finally we reach a dual climax of learning what was the original event that triggered the court case and what will happen when it finally comes to trial.
I found Gloss to be a totally engrossing read with its background of classic mythology combined with issues of eating disorders and trauma, but also the obsessions of coveting those things that one cannot have.
I read Gloss as the April 2025 selection from the Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month (BotM) club. Subscriptions to the BotM support the annual Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent publishers.
Footnote and Soundtrack
* This is the final line from the poem The Song of the Wandering Aengus by [author:W.B. Yeats|29963] (1865-1939) originally collected in [book:The Wind Among the Reeds|1481718] (1899). It was adapted as a folk song by [author:Donovan Leitch|54471579] (1946-) which you can listen to on YouTube here or on Spotify here. The song appeared on the HMS Donovan album (1971).
The full poem reads as:
Bonus Track
See album cover at https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2114222497_16.jpg
The mother of the Hesperides was Nyx, the Greek goddess of night. As chance would have it I saw a concert by the ensemble NYX electronic drone choir several months ago in Stratford, Canada and they have a recent self-titled album which you can listen to on Bandcamp here or on Spotify here.
There is an extended performance of the album's Track 3 Bright Tongues by NYX duo which you can see on YouTube here. show less
A review of the Les Fugitives paperback (February 24, 2025).
show more
'You do not have to be good.' - [author:Mary Oliver|23988] (used as the book's epigraph on pg. 9).
Stabbing things and cutting things and putting them inside us and mashing them all up into a paste. I'll push you to your limits here, he told us, but it will make you better. It will be for your own good. (pg. 77)
And the trees scratched their branches up against the side of the house and we pulled our
rotten-apple-smelling sheets up high over our heads and buried our faces into our musky pillows and said, maybe we don't always have to be so good. (pg. 136)
He said that girls like us were liars, that girls like us didn't deserve all the things he'd done for us. The meals he'd cooked us, the things he'd said, the way he'd worked so hard to get us well. And this is how he was repaid? he asked us, the smudges from the apples glowing golden on his hands. (pg. 149) - excerpts from Gloss.
In Greek mythology, the Hesperides are three nymphs who are tasked with guarding the tree of the gods which bears the golden apples of immortality. The orchard has a further guardian in the hundred-headed dragon Ladon. In the myth of the Labours of Hercules, the 11th labour is that of Hercules being tasked with stealing the golden apples.
Kyra Wilder's modern adaptation of the Hesperides mythology has three young women with eating disorders who have entered a farm based treatment facility called Golden Apples. The farm is run by a rather mysterious man named Lee Laton. A nearby neighbour has a dog named Hercules. Lee's treatment procedure involves the preparation of sometimes very elaborate meals which are often "force-fed" to the patients in game/test-like situations. As part of the farm work the patients must constantly polish the apples on the trees, but are admonished to not pick or eat them.
See paintingat https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/GardenHesperides_Burne...
Painting of The Garden of the Hesperides (1870-1873) by Edward Burne-Jones. Image sourced from Wikipedia by Edward Burne-Jones - preraphaelitepaintings.blogspot.com, Public Domain, Link.
Wilder builds a suspenseful, sometimes humorous, sometimes caring, sometimes fearful, story by a plot which has ongoing flashbacks and flashforwards. Many of the chapters are subtitled with the timing of them being hours or weeks or months before "the trial." For the longest time we don't know what the trial is about, so it is left to our imagination. Instead we observe the lives of the three women in a time after they have left the Golden Apples Farm. They are often withdrawn and it is not clear how much they are actually cured. Finally we reach a dual climax of learning what was the original event that triggered the court case and what will happen when it finally comes to trial.
I found Gloss to be a totally engrossing read with its background of classic mythology combined with issues of eating disorders and trauma, but also the obsessions of coveting those things that one cannot have.
I read Gloss as the April 2025 selection from the Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month (BotM) club. Subscriptions to the BotM support the annual Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent publishers.
Footnote and Soundtrack
* This is the final line from the poem The Song of the Wandering Aengus by [author:W.B. Yeats|29963] (1865-1939) originally collected in [book:The Wind Among the Reeds|1481718] (1899). It was adapted as a folk song by [author:Donovan Leitch|54471579] (1946-) which you can listen to on YouTube here or on Spotify here. The song appeared on the HMS Donovan album (1971).
The full poem reads as:
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
Bonus Track
See album cover at https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2114222497_16.jpg
The mother of the Hesperides was Nyx, the Greek goddess of night. As chance would have it I saw a concert by the ensemble NYX electronic drone choir several months ago in Stratford, Canada and they have a recent self-titled album which you can listen to on Bandcamp here or on Spotify here.
There is an extended performance of the album's Track 3 Bright Tongues by NYX duo which you can see on YouTube here. show less
I might change my review when I have had some distance, maybe this is not a good choice for when our own mental health feels so fragile, maybe it is too close to home. A previous reviewer suggested reading this in as few sittings as possible, to capture the speed of decline, but I had to take breaks from this to recover my bruised soul, finding it just a bit too much. I was scared by it, concerned, sorrowful. This may suggest it was really well written, which it is, but the star rating in show more this app reflects how you *like* the story and I could not *like* this, it was just too raw. show less
My thanks to Edelweiss for my e-ARC.
Erika is a fish out of water, an isolated fish. The good news is her husband, M, got a coveted promotion. The bad news is Erika, along with her children E and baby B, have to pack up and leave their family, friends, and life for Geneva. Moving is hard enough, but to a place where both the language and the culture is foreign...But, she is proud of M and will support him(even when he's practically NEVER around). They will make it through this transition. Or show more will they...?
Although M's job provides accommodation and financial resources are not lacking, the days linger, interminably, with one melding into the next. Consumed with the responsibility and requirements of two young children. Minimal adult companionship. Even the best of us would lose it.
Narrated in the third person, from Erika's perspective, the book is divided into parts. Interspersed are narratives from her time in the mental health facility.
After finishing this book, I must say that the blurb was better. Although brief at 162 pages, it FELT much longer. Usually I enjoy vivid descriptions of settings and characters. But, here, I felt they were excessive to the point of tediousness. Also, like many other reviewers, I could not make sense of the author's use of initials for the members of Erika's family. When the end finally came, it was abrupt and unsatisfying. show less
Erika is a fish out of water, an isolated fish. The good news is her husband, M, got a coveted promotion. The bad news is Erika, along with her children E and baby B, have to pack up and leave their family, friends, and life for Geneva. Moving is hard enough, but to a place where both the language and the culture is foreign...But, she is proud of M and will support him(even when he's practically NEVER around). They will make it through this transition. Or show more will they...?
Although M's job provides accommodation and financial resources are not lacking, the days linger, interminably, with one melding into the next. Consumed with the responsibility and requirements of two young children. Minimal adult companionship. Even the best of us would lose it.
Narrated in the third person, from Erika's perspective, the book is divided into parts. Interspersed are narratives from her time in the mental health facility.
After finishing this book, I must say that the blurb was better. Although brief at 162 pages, it FELT much longer. Usually I enjoy vivid descriptions of settings and characters. But, here, I felt they were excessive to the point of tediousness. Also, like many other reviewers, I could not make sense of the author's use of initials for the members of Erika's family. When the end finally came, it was abrupt and unsatisfying. show less
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