A Wild Winter Swan: A Novel

by Gregory Maguire

Overview

After brilliantly reimagining the worlds of Oz, Wonderland, Dickensian London, and the Nutcracker, the New York Times bestselling author of Wicked turns his unconventional genius to Hans Christian Andersen's "The Wild Swans," transforming this classic tale into an Italian-American girl's poignant coming-of-age story, set amid the magic of Christmas in 1960s New York.

Following her brother's death and her mother's emotional breakdown, Laura now lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, in a lonely townhouse she shares with her old-world, strict, often querulous grandparents. But the arrangement may be temporary. The quiet, awkward teenager has been getting into trouble at home and has been expelled from her high school for throwing a record album at a popular girl who bullied her. When Christmas is over and the new year begins, Laura may find herself at boarding school in Montreal. 

Nearly unmoored from reality through her panic and submerged grief, Laura is startled when a handsome swan boy with only one wing lands on her roof. Hiding him from her ever-bickering grandparents, Laura tries to build the swan boy a wing so he can fly home. But the task is too difficult to accomplish herself. Little does Laura know that her struggle to find help for her new friend parallels that of her grandparents, who are desperate for a distant relative’s financial aid to save the family store. 

As he explores themes of class, isolation, family, and the dangerous yearning to be saved by a power greater than ourselves, Gregory Maguire conjures a haunting, beautiful tale of magical realism that illuminates one young woman’s heartbreak and hope as she begins the inevitable journey to adulthood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062980809
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/06/2020
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Gregory Maguire has written quite a few books for adults, including Wicked, which inspired the Broadway play and the two-part movie. He’s also written several dozen books for children, the more recent titles being What-the-Dickens, Egg & Spoon, and Cress Watercress, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book. 

Hometown:

Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

June 9, 1954

Place of Birth:

Albany, New York

Education:

B.A., SUNY at Albany, 1976; M.A., Simmons College, 1978; Ph.D., Tufts University, 1990

Website:

http://www.gregorymaguire.com

Editorial Reviews

08/10/2020

Maguire (Wicked) continues his fabulist fairy tale remixes with this enchanting story, which draws inspiration from the Hans Christian Andersen tale “The Wild Swans.” In the original, a sister saves her seven brothers from the curse of living as swans by sewing them magical shirts; one brother’s shirt isn’t quite finished, and he ends up with a swan wing instead of an arm. Maguire brings this tale to New York City in 1962, where 15-year-old Laura Ciardi is preparing for an important Christmas Eve dinner in the brownstone where she lives with her Italian immigrant grandparents. Between troubles at school, the looming dread of attending a new boarding school in Canada, the expectations of her grandparents, and worries about her absent mother, Laura doesn’t really have time to deal with the boy who crash lands in her bedroom with one huge swan wing for a left arm. But this new challenge turns out to be exactly what Laura needs to find courage to begin moving forward in her own life. Maguire parallels the swan boy’s story of brokenness to Laura’s own struggles overcoming class and cultural differences. Fans of Maguire’s retellings will love this simple, elegant story. (Oct.)Correction: The publisher listed on a previous version of this review was incorrect.

Publishers Weekly

Maguire (Wicked) continues his fabulist fairy tale remixes with this enchanting story, . . . Maguire parallels the swan boy’s story of brokenness to Laura’s own struggles overcoming class and cultural differences. Fans of Maguire’s retellings will love this simple, elegant story.” — Publishers Weekly

“As Maguire has so often done before with books like Wicked and Mirror Mirror, A Wild Winter Swan is a delight of fantasy and the grotesquely beautiful in all of us.” — San Francisco Book Review

“A comical, entertaining, heartfelt, and rare story, A Wild Winter Swan is the highbrow fairy tale your fall yearns for.” — Shondaland

“Maguire, whose gift for transforming children’s stories is most famously on display in Wicked, works his magic once again with this retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale 'The Wild Swans.' An enchanting, tender, often funny coming-of-age story whose perceptive truths about the human condition surprise and delight.” — Library Journal (starred review)

“This is a novel that is meant to be read in a book nook with thick socks and a winter sweater. It is a very comfortable read, where moments of stress and sadness bloom into scenes of real mystery and beauty . . . A Wild Winter Swan is unlike anything I have read in a long time—in its intimacy, simplicity and welcoming solace.” — Bookreporter.com

“Sensitive depictions of generational and coming-of-age conflicts intertwine with whimsy as Maguire touchingly shows how people invoke stories to help elucidate their complicated world.” — Booklist

“In a masterful meld of fantasy, longing, and troublesome relationships, Maguire’s A Wild Winter Swan shows us, and its young protagonist, that heartfelt connections with other people—and with animals—can lay for us a bridge between life’s sorrows and its wonder.” — Historical Novel Society

“Gregory Maguire still has the magic touch . . . Maguire tells Laura’s story in lush prose, laced with humor and poignancy, weaving the fabulous into the quotidian world. It’s a spell you’ll be happy to have cast upon you.” — Tampa Bay Times

From the Publisher

In a masterful meld of fantasy, longing, and troublesome relationships, Maguire’s A Wild Winter Swan shows us, and its young protagonist, that heartfelt connections with other people—and with animals—can lay for us a bridge between life’s sorrows and its wonder.

Historical Novel Society

Sensitive depictions of generational and coming-of-age conflicts intertwine with whimsy as Maguire touchingly shows how people invoke stories to help elucidate their complicated world.

Booklist

Gregory Maguire still has the magic touch . . . Maguire tells Laura’s story in lush prose, laced with humor and poignancy, weaving the fabulous into the quotidian world. It’s a spell you’ll be happy to have cast upon you.

Tampa Bay Times

As Maguire has so often done before with books like Wicked and Mirror Mirror, A Wild Winter Swan is a delight of fantasy and the grotesquely beautiful in all of us.

San Francisco Book Review

A comical, entertaining, heartfelt, and rare story, A Wild Winter Swan is the highbrow fairy tale your fall yearns for.

Shondaland

This is a novel that is meant to be read in a book nook with thick socks and a winter sweater. It is a very comfortable read, where moments of stress and sadness bloom into scenes of real mystery and beauty . . . A Wild Winter Swan is unlike anything I have read in a long time—in its intimacy, simplicity and welcoming solace.

Bookreporter.com

Sensitive depictions of generational and coming-of-age conflicts intertwine with whimsy as Maguire touchingly shows how people invoke stories to help elucidate their complicated world.

Booklist

05/01/2020

After Oz, Wonderland, and the swirling worlds of Dickensian London and E.T.A. Hoffman's The Nutcracker, Maguire transfigures Hans Christian Andersen's "The Wild Swans," here retold as the story of an Italian American girl named Laura living with her starchy grandparents on Manhattan's Upper East Side in the 1960s. As she frets that she will be sent to boarding school after Christmas, a handsome boy with one swan wing appears on her roof. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal

While it may, initially, seem a strange choice to cast an older man as the narrator of a winter-themed fantasy featuring a teenage girl, John McDonough ably delivers Maguire’s reimagined Hans Christian Andersen tale. The plot, while absurd, is rather simple: How will the misfit main character sneak a goose-boy out of her grandparents’ house, bustling as it is with holiday preparations, and send him back to whence he came? Somehow, with McDonough at the helm, the listener is able to suspend disbelief enough to avoid fixating on pesky plot holes and instead enjoy a masterful performance from a voice actor who—whether he meant to or not—comes off as a wry Saint Nick. This is a welcome winter listen. G.P. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2020 - AudioFile

While it may, initially, seem a strange choice to cast an older man as the narrator of a winter-themed fantasy featuring a teenage girl, John McDonough ably delivers Maguire’s reimagined Hans Christian Andersen tale. The plot, while absurd, is rather simple: How will the misfit main character sneak a goose-boy out of her grandparents’ house, bustling as it is with holiday preparations, and send him back to whence he came? Somehow, with McDonough at the helm, the listener is able to suspend disbelief enough to avoid fixating on pesky plot holes and instead enjoy a masterful performance from a voice actor who—whether he meant to or not—comes off as a wry Saint Nick. This is a welcome winter listen. G.P. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2020 - AudioFile