THE ROBBER GIRL

Robber Girl, raised by the thieving Gentlemen, knows better than to become tame.

When Gentleman Jack is arrested, the Judge takes the girl into his home. She’s wild: She bites, she can’t read, and she doesn’t know how to eat properly. And though the girl has an Affliction making it harder for her to speak to humans, she talks with her dagger, which scolds her endlessly. The Judge insists that she go to school (“school is a taming thing,” says the dagger). The Judge encourages her to name herself, and she chooses Starling (“what a terrible name,” says the dagger). The Judge has an astonishing dollhouse that was built for his recently deceased daughter, and Starling gets a quest from the affectionate dolls (“stop talking to the dolls!” yells the dagger). In a setting just slightly sideways from the 19th-century American frontier, it’s never entirely clear what’s the imagination of an almost-feral robber girl and what are the workings of a world where allegory and reality intertwine. Though the prose is symbolically laden, it’s never purple, and as Starling learns about good, kind people, her growing empathy is drawn in the gaps. The fantastical touches lend a beautiful unreality, although they also create an unfortunate connection between disfigurement and sin. All characters are White or light skinned.

Gorgeously written, with ferocious emotion in the caesuras of a sparse, unreliable narrative.