Sarah Canary – Karen Joy Fowler

Sarah Canary - Karen Joy Fowler
Sarah Canary – Karen Joy Fowler

A Science Fiction recommendation I picked up from somewhere, aeons ago, and finally borrowed from the library.

As much historical fiction as SciFi., it’s worth reading the introduction to appreciate all the ways in which “Sarah Canary”‘s otherworldiness is interpreted by the late 19th century west coast American society/ies she encounters – Chinese railway construction crews, asylum doctors and inmates, suffragist speaker, freak show showman, company settlement lumberjacks, native Indians, San Francisco urbanites.

And all the while we never get even a hint of Sarah Canary’s view of events.

Author’s page: Sarah Canary – Karen Joy Fowler

A Phantasmagoria of Victims – review by Richard Eder, LA Times, October 20, 1991