Larque on the Wing

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3111114.html

I confess I had never heard of Nancy Springer before reading this novel, which shared the 1995 James Tiptree Jr Award with "The Matter of Seggri". It turns out that she is much better known for her YA novels about Sherlock Holmes' smarter younger sister. I found Larque on the Wing a complete delight. The viewpoint character, Larque Harootunian, undergoes a mid-life crisis similar to that in Doris Lessing's The Summer Before the Dark, with the important difference that she is able to create doppelgangers of people she interacts with more or less by accident, and that her conservative mother is able to blink away undesirable characteristics of the people she interacts with. Larque reinvents show more herself as a young gay chap, to the dismay of her husband, and everyone needs to do some readjusting. The tone is comic but the foundations are hard. One of those cases where the awards system identified a good novel that might not otherwise have got much recognition from the genre. show less

Very different from most of Springer's books, which tend toward classic fairy-tale fantasy. This one is more reminiscent of Margaret Atwood, with a thematic agenda of feminism, sexual relations and aging. The "fantasy" elements are more surreal than actual fantasy.
The protagonist, Lark, has always had a strange habit of summoning up what she calls doppelgangers – physical manifestations caused by her unbidden thoughts. As the story begins, she has created one that seems to be a particularly unpleasant incarnation of herself as a child. Lark comes to realize that not only does she not like this child who is herself, but she also dislikes her current self – overweight, married, and boring, not having lived up to everything that the show more child Lark had hoped for. Through encounters with a handsome and mystical gay man who also has powers of transformation – and with her mother, who has her own supernatural gift of denial – Lark goes through various transformations of identity and gender while coming to terms with her life as a middle-aged woman. show less

This book was packaged in a set of books that won the Tiptree award, and I took a look at it after reading the one I read the set for.
I understand Larque. I tried explaining the story to my husband and failed miserably because the whole story is a bit of a dreamscape. It's a story about a woman having a mid-life crisis in which she realizes some part of herself is starving and another part of herself isn't a woman at all. The remainder was very thoroughly shaped by her mother's inability to handle anything that isn't her estimation of perfect. I think if the story were written about a woman today going through this, the ending may have been different, but for the time period it seems to have gone the best for Larque.
Anyway, neat story show more dealing with gender and sexuality issues, though a bit behind what a similar story would look like set in today's times. This story feels like it was set in the 90's? So imagine accordingly if you pick it up.
When I went through my personal version of this journey I found a different ending myself, but that's all I'm ready to say right now. show less

An easy, engaging read with serious truths presented in a matter-of-fact and often humorous light. Was not pleased the the rushed ending WRT Shadow.

Oh, I love this book. A middle-aged woman is magically transformed into a young gay male and has the time of her/his life. And also rescues her marriage and does some other good deeds along the way.

Tiptree winner 1994