"Singing My Sister Down" | |
---|---|
Short story by Margo Lanagan | |
Country | Australia |
Language | English |
Genre(s) | Fantasy Short story |
Publication | |
Published in | Black Juice |
Publication type | Short story collection |
Publisher | Allen & Unwin |
Media type | Print (Paperback) |
Publication date | 2004 |
"Singing My Sister Down" is a 2004 fantasy short story by Australian writer Margo Lanagan.
"Singing My Sister Down" was first published in 2004 in the author's first collection of short stories, Black Juice and published by Allen & Unwin. [1] The story was later published in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror: Eighteenth Annual Collection [2] edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, and Gavin J. Grant; The Year's Best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy (Volume 1) [3] edited by Bill Congreve and Michelle Marquardt; and The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories [4] edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer.
"In Margo Lanagan’s “Singing My Sister Down”, a young boy watches as his sister Ikky is publicly executed, not by lethal injection or firing squad, but by slow submersion in a tar pit. Ikky’s crime is never explicitly discussed, although it is inferred that she killed her husband with an axe (which calls to mind Lizzie Borden, the supposed female murderer who has become a part of American folklore and the public imagination at large). An intimate moment with family becomes a public event, as Ikky sinks further into the deeps, and a young woman accused of murder becomes fodder for the eagerly watching crowds." [5]
Jeff VanderMeer is an American author, editor, and literary critic. Initially associated with the New Weird literary genre, VanderMeer crossed over into mainstream success with his bestselling Southern Reach Series. The series' first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards, and was adapted into a Hollywood film by director Alex Garland. Among VanderMeer's other novels are Shriek: An Afterword and Borne. He has also edited with his wife Ann VanderMeer such influential and award-winning anthologies as The New Weird, The Weird, and The Big Book of Science Fiction.
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Black Juice is the first collection of short stories by Australian writer Margo Lanagan. It was released in paperback by Allen and Unwin in 2004, and features the author's widely anthologised short story "Singing My Sister Down", which won the 2005 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story.