By Margo Lanagan
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
To Sum It Up:
Just when she can no longer face the horrors that she’s endured in her life, Liga Longfield escapes to a magical realm where no one can ever hurt her again. She raises her two daughters there, and over the years, the family leads a quiet life. Back in the real town of St. Olafred’s, though, the magic from the other world is seeping through more and more and causing trouble for the residents. The town must be returned to normal, but it means the loss of her haven for Liga, who finds herself back in the place that once caused her so much suffering.
Review:
Um . . . okay. Tender Morsels is the second Margo Lanagan novel that I’ve read, and just as I grappled for the words to describe what it was like to read The Brides of Rollrock Island, I don’t know where to begin here. I will warn you that despite its YA label, Tender Morsels is not for the faint of heart, even if you’re an adult who reads YA. This is NOT a light, easy read, not only because of the style of the prose, but also because of some of the subject matter; there’s incest, abortion, and rape in the first few chapters alone.So what was I thinking picking up a book like this in the first place? Well, I slowly fell in love with Lanagan’s writing while reading The Brides of Rollrock Island. It was tough going with that book in the beginning because the prose was unlike anything I’d come across before—so lyrical that it almost seemed like poetry sometimes. The characters also spoke in their own local dialect, which further made Brides a challenge to read. It did take me a good while to get a feel for the rhythm of the writing, and I almost gave up on the book. In the end, though, I was thoroughly impressed with Lanagan’s masterful storytelling. I definitely wanted to check out more of her works, and that’s how I wound up reading Tender Morsels.
I didn’t read the novel’s synopsis before borrowing it from the library; I was just excited to see another Lanagan book on the shelves and added it to my stack. So you can imagine my horror at finding myself utterly outside of my reading comfort zone almost immediately. Since the death of her mother, Liga has been subjected to repeated rape by her father, who also forces potions brewed by the local “mudwife,” Annie Bywell, on his daughter to terminate any pregnancies. The abuse—sexual as well as physical and psychological—only ends when Liga’s father is found dead in the road after a night of drinking. She gives birth to a daughter, Branza, and tries to eke out a living for the two of them. No one in the small town of St. Olafred’s shows any interest in helping her. Although Liga does her best to keep to herself, one of the local boys spots her one day and leads a group of his friends to her home, where they gang rape her. Now at her breaking point, Liga is about to kill her infant daughter and herself when she’s given the chance to escape to a magical place where she, Branza, and, soon after, her younger daughter, Urdda, will be safe.
After this brutal beginning to the novel, Liga finally finds some peace in this other realm, her own piece of heaven. The villagers are polite to her, and the ones who didn’t treat her kindly back in the real St. Olafred’s are missing from her version of it. This haven represents everything that Liga didn’t have in the cruel, real world, but at the same time, it poses a subtle danger of its own. Liga means well by giving her daughters the protection she never had, but their sheltered lives are not without consequences. The day after day sameness of this life causes the daring and curious Urdda to yearn for the experience of life outside of her mother’s sanctuary, and when Urdda has the opportunity to pursue it, she takes it. Branza grows up to be more like Liga, reserved and cautious. When the time arrives for Branza and her mother to join Urdda in the real world, both women have a difficult time adapting to a place that they fear can only harm them.
Like she did with Brides, Lanagan employs multiple POVs, even switching back and forth between first and third person, to vividly illustrate the effects of magic on a small town community. While Liga has found refuge, the boundary between her magical world and the real one is becoming unstable, resulting in some bizarre incidents around St. Olafred’s (To make a long story short, some of the young men are turning into bears. There is nothing conventional about this book.). I can’t adequately capture in words how expert Lanagan is at entwining her characters’ individual stories and making every single one, no matter how small it may appear in comparison to larger ones, like Liga’s, feel essential. And as central as her arc is to the book, the novel is as much about the impact Liga’s time away from reality has had on the town as it is about her years spent in her heaven.
While Tender Morsels, even with its very dark themes, didn’t quite match the punch of The Brides of Rollrock Island’s revenge-propelled plot, it’s still a powerful, brilliantly written story. It is most definitely not, however, a book that is for everyone; I had a really hard time stomaching parts of this. Did Liga truly have to undergo every horror that she did in order to be driven over the edge? Probably not. I don’t think this is the best introduction to Lanagan’s work; if you are curious about her books, I believe The Brides of Rollrock Island would be a better place to start. The prose in that one also takes some adjusting to and it has its out there moments, too, but I didn’t find it nearly as disturbing as Tender Morsels.
All in All:
I had trouble with the rating because on the one hand, I loved the prose. On the other, this book sometimes made me queasy. I think Tender Morsels is the type of novel that has a niche audience: either you’re already familiar with Margo Lanagan’s work, or you’re a particularly undaunted reader.
