Title:

The Crane Husband

Author:

Kelly Barnhill

Category:

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

May 29, 2024

lthough Barnhill has achieved bestseller status for her young adult novels, including the award winning The Girl Who Drank the Moon, this 118 page novella, The Crane Husband is not a children's book, albeit that the heroine is just fifteen years old, and the central plot appears to be a dark, warped version of a fairy tale called The Crane Wife.

The narrator lives with her mom and six year old brother, Michael, barely ekeing out an existence in an old farmhouse that sits next to a giant cornfield that once was land that belonged to their family. Now the cornfield is a monoculture crop, patrolled by drones and tended by robots - owned by a faceless corporation that has never seen the old farm.

The father died a few years ago after a prolonged illness. The mother is a talented artist, she weaves stunning tapestries. She also makes cheese. The family raises three sheep. But although she can create marvelous works of art, the mother has no head for numbers or how to manage the family finances. It is up the the narrator (I don't recall if her name is ever mentioned) to keep the lights on, pay the bills, do the shopping and raise her young brother. She maintains an online persona of "Bruce", selling the tapestries and generating interest for more artwork.

One day, the mother brings home a large crane (yes, a tall bird) and introduces him to the family. "What shall we call him?" the girl asks her mother. "Call him Father", replies the mother. The mother has previously brought home various men for bouts of casual sex, but they never stuck around for long. The girl is certain that the crane will follow that same pattern and soon depart. But the crane sticks around. Even worse, the mother acts as if she has been bewitched - she can think of nothing but her love for the crane. They spend hours together behind a locked door where her mother is creating some sort of masterpiece upon her loom. With all of the mother's attention focused entirely on the crane, the precarious existence of the family fractures further. There is no income, no food. The children stop attending school.

Even worse, there are hints that there is a strange man in the house. Is the crane a shape-shifter? Barnhill does a great job of depicting menace radiating from the crane. The slow degeneration of the family circumstances, the sense of dread as the mother nears completion of her latest masterpiece, and the hints that crane might actually be human - all of this adds up to a dark tale indeed. It's a terrific read, but certainly not one meant for kids.