Thistlefoot: A Novel | harshalomlibrary | TinyCat |

2024-04-27 8:21 am

Thistlefoot: A Novel

by GennaRose Nethercott

Paperback, 2023

Status

Available

Call number

F NET Thi

Genres

General Fiction

Collections

ADULT COLLECTION, Adult Fiction

Publication

Vintage (2023), Edition: Reprint, 448 pages

Description

"The Yaga siblings--Bellatine, a young woodworker, and Isaac, a wayfaring street performer and con artist--have been estranged since childhood, separated both by resentment and by wide miles of American highway. But when they learn that they are to receive a mysterious inheritance, the siblings are reunited--only to discover that their bequest isn't land or money, but something far stranger: a sentient house on chicken legs. Thistlefoot, as the house is called, has arrived from the Yagas' ancestral home in Russia--but not alone. A sinister figure known only as the Longshadow Man has tracked it to American shores, bearing with him violent secrets from the past: fiery memories that have hidden in Isaac and Bellatine's blood for generations. As the Yaga siblings embark with Thistlefoot on a final cross-country tour of their family's traveling theater show, the Longshadow Man follows in relentless pursuit, seeding destruction in his wake. Ultimately, time, magic, and legacy must collide--erupting in a powerful conflagration to determine who gets to remember the past and craft a new future"--… (more)

Media reviews

Washington Post

Steeped in the ancient tropes of folk tales and animated by a passionate belief in the vital role of storytelling, GennaRose Nethercott’s first novel builds on her work as a folklorist and poet. “Thistlefoot” updates the classic Slavic tale of Baba Yaga, a ferocious old woman who lives deep

in the forest in a house standing on chicken legs. In Nethercott’s version, the building has been bequeathed to contemporary American siblings Bellatine and Isaac Yaga by their great-great-grandmother...There’s a lot of dense plotting to absorb while Thistlefoot fills us in about Baba Yaga and the grim fate of the shtetl’s Jewish inhabitants, in counterpoint with Isaac and Bellatine struggling through their own painful memories. The text is stuffed, perhaps overstuffed, with Nethercott’s thoughts on everything from antisemitism and class prejudice to the nature of identity and the mixed blessing of belonging to a community. Through it all, her central concern is how we preserve and understand the past through the stories we tell.... “Thistlefoot” is by no means a perfect novel, but it is something almost better: a book with so much on its mind that it bursts its seams to sprawl across genres and forms. Nethercott explores more ideas than her plot can comfortably contain, but serious readers will appreciate her ambition and commitment.

— 2 more

Part ghost story, part font of wisdom, this gorgeously written novel takes a fantastical romp while cautioning readers to remember the violence and inequity of the past—even when forgetting seems preferable....With echoes of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Sholem Aleichem, as well as Buddhist and

Christian overtones, the Yagas unearth their past. They learn they come from people who dreamed and believed, who brought with them to America “languages, folded into the suitcases of their tongues.” They realize they must tell the story of Gedenkrovka, Russia, where a pogrom destroyed its Jewish inhabitants. Despite its serious subject matter, this novel contains delights on every page. The author displays a capacious imagination, providing an entertaining, colorful read while grappling with subjects of utmost importance to today’s turbulent world. This book blooms from a fairy tale to a panoptic story that defies space and time, brimming with creativity, wisdom, and love.

Publisher's Weekly

Nethercott’s dark, difficult fiction debut (after the poetry collection The Lumberjack’s Dove) offers a heartbreaking reinterpretation of the myth of Baba Yaga.... Nethercott’s ambitious attempt to write the next American Gods falters in its handling of evil. The characters themselves point

out that the villain talks like a Nazi from an Indiana Jones movie, which cheapens the examination of racism and mob mentality—especially in the context of depictions of horrific antisemtism witnessed by the house (including a graphic infant murder in a Russian pogrom). Still, fans of thorny, contemporary retellings of folklore will appreciate Nethercott’s take on the theme of inherited trauma.

User reviews

LibraryThing member jennybeast

Well this is a fantastical and unexpected romp — full of Yagas, the iconic house, prodigal children and tricksters, with some stellar puppet imagery and powerful storytelling throughout. In addition, and perhaps more to the point, possibly one of the most intricate and moving depictions of

generational trauma and it’s lasting effects I’ve ever read. Particular shout out to recognizing Sandglass’ theater’s work — they are amazing and it’s a delight to see their magic wending through the story. Beautiful and moving.

Advanced Readers Copy provided by edelweiss.

LibraryThing member ladycato

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

This book is about the chicken-footed house of the infamous Baba Yaga, brought into modern America, but even more its about humanity, psychology, evil, and survival. Though the books slips from perspective to perspective like someone

changing clothes, it principally follows the two Yaga siblings: Isaac, a wayfaring rogue with a knack for impersonating other people, and Bellatine, who works with wood but takes care with what else she touches because of the dread potential in her hands. They know they have Jewish ancestry going back to Russia, but little about it, so when the siblings are reunited when they are bequeathed the chicken-footed house, they are taken aback by their weird fortune. Things get weirder from there, as it soon becomes clear that a dark force has also come from Russia and is hunting them down.

Foremost, the praise: the prose is gorgeous. There were multiple lines that made me say, "Wow" out loud. The book could be read and enjoyed for its language alone. However, this is not a gentle read. Major trigger warnings apply here, as there is a deep exploration of despair, death, and pogroms. It covers brutal subject matter in a heart-wrenching way.

Other aspects bothered me, though. Isaac is the kind of callous rogue who repulses me on a deep level. I struggled to get into the book because of his chapters through much of the book. The story is also surprisingly linear. It delivered little in the way of surprises through the end. Some major questions around the whole initial set-up of Thistlefoot (the house) and the bad guy coming to America were never answered for me, either.

LibraryThing member tapestry100

THISTLEFOOT, by GennaRose Nethercott from Anchor, is a modern day fairy tale steeped in Jewish lore, all based around the legend of Baga Yaga and her chicken-legged home.

The estranged Yaga twins, Isaac and Bellatrine, are brought back together when they are bequeathed a family heirloom from a long

deceased ancestor. This heirloom is the chicken-legged, sentient house which Bellatrine names Thistlefoot. Coming from a family troupe of puppeteers, Isaac decides they should take Thistlefoot on tour across the United States and perform their family’s signature show, The Drowned Fool, to raise money to escape his debts. What neither sibling knows, though, is they are being pursued by the Longshadow Man, who is leaving a path of death behind him on his quest to capture Thistlefoot for himself.

I’m not familiar with the legend of Baba Yaga beyond the most basic understanding, but I feel that Nethercott has done her research and reworked the legend nicely as a story of Jewish survival. While sometimes loaded down with an excess of purple prose, the story is still wildly engaging. Nethercott has that rare ability to write a story with characters who seem to exist somewhere out of time; while the story seems to be taking place in the now, the characters have this timeless quality about them and could be existing in the then and now simultaneously, especially Isaac. He could be living as a vaudeville performer in the 1920s just as easily as a puppeteer performer in the 2020s.

I wasn’t as sure that I was going to like this at first (unfortunately, the purple prose really can drag the story down at times), but ultimately this turned out to be a great read for me. A huge thank you to @netgalley and @vintageanchorbooks for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. THISTLEFOOT will be available September 13, 2022.

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LibraryThing member melaniehope

I think I went in with very high expectations in this story and was a little surprised it was different than I thought. The writing was very good and descriptive, but I didn't find myself drawn to reading this at every chance I got. Although this is a modern-day fairytale, the theme was intense and

perhaps heavier than I was expecting. The story centers around an ancient chicken-footed house that was owned by Baba Yaga and is gifted to Isaac and Bellatine, estranged siblings who come together after being separated to claim their inheritance. The story centers around the violent history of pogroms, evil, humanity and the importance of memory and being a witness to your ancestors.
The book does stay with you long after you have finished it. I received a complimentary eBook from Netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

LibraryThing member Eliz12

I don't like to leave reviews if I haven't completed the book, but I'm going to do that here as a warning to myself not to come back and as a caution to other readers who, like me, might be tempted by the description on the jacket.
I'm giving two stars here because the author seems to be a good

enough writer. There are some descriptions that are quite good, some word pairings that are beautiful, in fact. But the story is so heavy, it drags, meanders, is unbelieveable and has characters who are particularly unappealing. I suppose it's meant to be a fantastical tale of adventure, weaving together myth (not sure why the Baba Yaga story and Jewish life are interwoven, as they really have nothing to do with each other) and the past and modern life. But I wasn't interested, and I found myself dreading picking up the book. Halfway through I complained to my daughter: "I really don't want to read this." She reminded me that I finished college many years ago so I am no longer obligated to read books I'm not enjoying, so I'm done with this one.

LibraryThing member krau0098

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed a copy of this on ebook from my library.

Thoughts: This is an intriguing book that focuses on a lot of different things at once. I enjoyed the beautiful, unique way it was written but at times got a bit frustrated with how much the story

jumped around.

The story follows the Yaga siblings. Bellatine is a woodworker who has graduated college and is starting to make a stable life for herself. Isaac is her brother and is a drifter. Isaac drifts from place to place taking what he wants from the world. They get notice that they have received an inheritance in the form of a chicken-legged house. In the end they make a deal to tour with it for a year, after that Bellatine will settle down with it. Their plans are sent askew when they find out the Longshadow Man is trying to hunt both them and the house down.

This was an intriguing story and very well done. I loved all the creativity and description here and the book is very beautifully written. The book jumps between many different points of view and times. Mostly we hear from Bellatine or Isaac. With Bellatine we mostly stay in the current day. Isaac alternates between telling stories of his travels and his modern day activities. We also hear from the house which tells different known stories of its origins but also starts to tell us its true history.

This is a world similar to our own but things like houses with feet aren't unheard-of; inanimate objects in this world also occasionally develop human parts. Also, both Bellatine and Isaac have power of a sort. Bellatine can awaken inanimate objects and Isaac can mimic other living people. There's enough magic here that this goes beyond magic realism into all out fantasy.

While I enjoyed this a ton I did struggle a bit with how many changes in both time and POV the story had. I was also a bit let down by how things ended. The reveal of the true history of the house and the end of the story sucked a lot of the magic out of it for me and made me feel really sad and let down. This book is less about the mythology of Baba Yaga and more about the importance of keeping memories and stories alive.

My Summary (4.5/5): Overall I really enjoyed this. I loved the creativity here and enjoyed the beautiful writing style. It was intriguing to puzzle out the story between all the different characters and time frames. However, this also broke up the story and made it a bit hard to follow. I do think this is an exceptional story and it was much different than other books I have read. I enjoyed delving into an alternate history of Baba Yaga and her tale. I would recommend this and plan on keeping tabs on Nethercott to see what she writes in the future.

LibraryThing member jamie.crosby2019

I had a hard time getting into this book. I have to devolgue that I didn't finish it. I was looking forward to this book but felt that it jumped around from past to present to much. I also felt that it dragged due to, to much detail. I do think the author is a good writer.The book just felt like it

dragged and I had a hard time picking it back up again. The characters were solid.

LibraryThing member rocketjk

Thistlefoot is a whimsical, though very often dark, novel based on Eastern European mythology with magical realism the rule of the day. Isaac and Ballatine Yaga are brother and sister, Jewish young adults living in more or less modern day U.S. and the grandchildren of a refugee from anti-Jewish

pogroms in Russia. They have been raised on the road, working with their parents in an itinerant traveling puppet show. At 17, Isaac has run off to discover himself via a life on the road. Seven years later, the siblings learn that their grandmother has died and left them an inheritance that is being delivered from Eastern Europe. The sibling reunite on the New York City pier where their inheritance is being delivered. This inheritance turns out to be an entire house. But this house is alive, if not sentient, and it is mobile, for it has legs and can both walk and run. And it can understand commands, as long as they are delivered in Yiddish. Soon they also learn that a being with evil powers is hunting the house and so, now, them. The story is based on the Slavic folklore of Baba Yaga, a woodland witch who is sometimes evil but sometimes a helper.

So there’s plenty of willing suspension of disbelieve needed to enjoy this tale. That would be fine with me, if it weren’t for the fact that I found the writing, on a sentence and paragraph level, sadly lacking. This is a first novel for Nethercott, and she doesn’t seem to be in control of her prose at all. Most damaging, for me, at any rate, is the fact that the pages are full of cliches and lazy language. People glower. Their eyes become daggers. Pain scurries up people’s spines. Opening the book to a random page, one can find this: “Tom’s knuckles paled as they tightened on the wheel. His foot sank into the gas pedal, grave as a pocket filled with stones. . . .”

At one point we read, “The street was Dickensian, as if recreated from some Victorian era slum.” Well, but either you think I know what “Dickensian” means or you don’t. If you think I do, you don’t need the second part of the sentence. If you think I don’t, leave out the reference. And so forth. It’s unfortunate, because the storytelling and the imaginative thinking behind it are pretty good, especially in the book’s second half. The horrors of the pogroms and of lives cut short. The value of bearing witness and the illusory qualities of time and place. These and other elements make for a nice, thought-provoking narrative, as the story of the house and its pursuer are unfolded. Or they would have for me, if only I didn’t feel like I was getting poked in the eye with cliches and empty metaphors every paragraph. Well, I know that readers respond to these sorts of issues differently, and some folks just don’t care about them. Those lucky readers will enjoy this book much more than I did. Still, 3 ½ stars from me for the storytelling moxie.

LibraryThing member ViragoReads

I'm not sure my review for this book will be very eloquent, but I only just finished it and am in my feels. So this may be a more stream of consciousness review. I went into this read, having not heard [or remembered hearing] anything about it, be it positive or negative. It left me hesitant, but I

can honestly say this was not what I expected in the best way.

This story was amazingly bizarre. Or bizarrely amazing. I'm not sure which.
This story is about time, trauma, massacres, living, dying, and never being forgotten.

We followed multiple protagonists from different time periods who are all commected by blood and trauma; both literally and figuratively. It's told in "present day" and a centry prior, not to mention the side stories that all added up to an incredible ending, that was very bittersweet

Perhaps it's just the mood I'm in, but this book really got to me. It hit me hard. It was dark and traumatic and sad. Some of the stories just broke me. All of the characters are beautifully flawed. The stories were so darkly whimsical. This was just beautiful to me.

LibraryThing member Gwendydd

This is an entertaining take on the Baba Yaga legend. Two estranged siblings are called to New York to receive an inheritance from a European relative. When they open the giant shipping container, they find it contains a house on legs - the mythical house of Baba Yaga. They take the house on tour

to put on puppet shows and earn money, but soon discover that mysterious people are in pursuit of the house. The siblings each have magical powers: the brother can shapeshift to become other people, and the sister can animate lifeless things by touching them. They both have complicated relationships with their powers, but must learn to embrace them to overcome the dark forces that threaten them.

All in all, this is an entertaining book, and reasonably creative, if somewhat predictable.

LibraryThing member macha

3 and a half stars. this book is ambitious, trying to fold in Baba Yaga fairy tales with hobo narratives, crossed with dybbuk horror tales arising out of Russian historical pogroms. but the author (to use one of her own metaphors) can't quite make all the wooden parts join together into a coherent

narrative without using nails to force everything to fit. it's also very unevenly written, with way too much explained that needn't be, in both the story and the line-by-line writing, and too many characters that don't really come alive enough to care about them. in the end, for me it just didn't work. i applaud the ambition (extra half a star for that), but i kept having to talk myself into finishing it.

LibraryThing member LynnMPK

This book packs such an emotional punch and had me sobbing through the last few chapters.

It is a Baba Yaga origin story that follows two of her descendants, Isaac and Bellatine. We get flashback chapters from the perspective of Baba Yaga's house, which were my favorite parts! This is a modern

fantasy novel that manages to seamlessly weave in historical aspects of early 20th century Russia.

It covers some heavy topics-the pogroms in the Russian Empire are a major plot point. It also deals with self-hate and accepting yourself.

This book gave me strong The Diviners vibes and I would recommend it to anyone who has read and loved that series.

LibraryThing member BethYacoub

I DNFd this book at the 68% mark and here's why:
Ok... well, please hold off on the lynching until I finish explaining. On the one hand the premise had tons of potential... potential for days and days, in fact it was so promising that I kept coming back to it again and again hoping it just needed

some more of my time... NOPE... it just slogged on and I dreaded each time I chose to come back to it. I even bought it on Audible hoping a fresh voice would help this magical tale ensnare me but alas, it was not meant to be. C’est la vie,

Now, on the other hand, I'm not saying that the writing was terrible... it was... nice. It was decent EXCEPT it was also blatantly, unapologetically, savagely, overtly descriptive AND then there was Isaac... Isaac was tough to like and not in that misunderstood, morally gray, relateable underdog/antihero kind of way. He just rubbed me the wrong way and I wanted to skip over his parts... skimming urges are a surefire sign of a laggy, boring, faltering read. Dreading spending time doing my favorite activity is no bueno so it left me with little choice. You'd think that a book about Baba Yaga's decendants would be chock full of Baba Yaga or at least a comprehensive magic system that's explained. Whelp, nope, not here. With how descriptive everything else was, you'd think that EVERYTHING would be explained, and maybe it was explained in the last 32% of the book, but I think I gave it the good old college try.

This was a chaotic read. There were multiple POVs, and they jumped around without warning or preamble. I relied on picking up clues/names in order to discern who's voice I was listening to. AND for a book populated with characters possessing magic, they sure were flat. Now, I think that Bellatine did save the tale (as much as it could be rescued from itself). If the book had cut out the insane amount of descriptives and been only about Bellatine and this chicken leg facilitated mobile home, I think I would have been able to finish. I did like how the book highlighted the plight of the Jews and some of the antisemitic discrimination that they unbelievably/tragically still experience even until this very day.

On to the World... the world building (minus the descriptive overload) was decent. It's just hard to get fully immersed in a book that devotes chapters to mundane things... how much time do you expect us to devote to hearing about (chapter's worth of) Bellatine's hands... no action, no anything... just descriptions about hands albeit magical hands but hands nonetheless.

Overall:
I know I'm in the minority here, but decent writing, okay world building, and a noncapitalized upon (yet interesting) premise weren't enough to snatch and hold onto my attention thus the DNF and the low rating. I feel slightly guilty not finishing this book especially since I was so graciously given a copy of it to read for free but I even bought the audiobook so I can say, with a (mostly) clear conscience that I tried... I really did.

~ Sorry

*** I received an advance review copy for free from NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. ***

Awards

Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2024)

Audie Award (Finalist — Best Female Narrator — 2023)

Mythopoeic Awards (Finalist — Adult Literature — 2023)

Jewish Fiction Award (Honor Book — 2023)

New England Book Award (Finalist — Fiction — 2023)

NPR: Books We Love (2022)

Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2022)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2022

Physical description

448 p.; 8 inches

ISBN

0593314166 / 9780593314166

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