Wendy Walker; Stories Out of Omarie

Series No.: SMC 058

ISBN: 978-1557131720, Pages: 312

American Literature, Fiction

A Sun & Moon title.

* * *

Part of 50: A Celebration of Sun & Moon Classics

“The words slid off his tongue in a dazzle of pleasure which only heightened when he spoke of the Queen.”

—from ”The Twin Knots”

Wendy Walker retells eight of The Lais of Marie de France, a proto-feminist poem cycle written in England in the 12th century. Her style is as refined as Arthurian romance, yet as iconoclastic as Marie’s knights, whose adventures mainly serve to help ladies find lovers.

Walker amplifies Marie’s progressive views, while adding a touch of the postmodern, such as structuring the first story, “The Passing of Graelent,” after a tapestry in the Cluny Museum that disrupts its narrative with decorative panels.

Sun & Moon originally published Walker’s first three books, The Sea-Rabbit: Or, The Artist of Life (1988), The Secret Service (1992), and Stories Out of Omarie (1995). Her recent poetic work, Sexual Stealing (2021), connects Gothic literature, homosexuality, and Abolition.