Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

by Maguire, Gregory

• ISBN13: 9780060987527
• ISBN10: 0060987529
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-01-01
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

Is this new land a place where magics really happen? From Gregory Maguire, the acclaimed author of Wicked, comes his much-anticipated second novel, a brilliant and provocative retelling of the timeless Cinderella tale. In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings.... When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for human beings to turn into rats.... We all have heard the story of Cinderella, the beautiful child cast out to slave among the ashes. But what of her stepsisters, the homely pair exiled into ignominy by the fame of their lovely sibling? What fate befell those untouched by beauty . . . and what curses accompanied Cinderella's exquisite looks? Extreme beauty is an affliction Set against the rich backdrop of seventeenth-century Holland, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister tells the story of Iris, an unlikely heroine who finds herself swept from the lowly streets of Haarlem to a strange world of wealth, artifice, and ambition. Iris's path quickly becomes intertwined with that of Clara, the mysterious and unnaturally beautiful girl destined to become her sister. Clara was the prettiest child, but was her life the prettiest tale? While Clara retreats to the cinders of the family hearth, burning all memories of her past, Iris seeks out the shadowy secrets of her new household--and the treacherous truth of her former life. God and Satan snarling at each other like dogs.... Imps and fairy godmotbers trying to undo each other's work. How we try to pin the world between opposite extremes! Far more than a mere fairy-tale, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is a novel of beauty and betrayal, illusion and understanding, reminding us that deception can be unearthed--and love unveiled--in the most unexpected of places.

Table of Contents

Prologue Stories Painted on Porcelain	xiii
The Obscure Child	1	(76)
Marketplace	3	(9)
Stories Told Through Windows	12	(6)
Looking	18	(10)
Meadow	28	(5)
Sitting for Schoonmaker	33	(12)
Girl with Wildflowers	45	(9)
Half a Door	54	(10)
Van Den Meer's Household	64	(13)
The IMP-Riddled House	77	(62)
The Small Room of Outside	79	(19)
Small Oils	98	(7)
The Masterpiece	105	(4)
Rue, Sage, Thyme, and Temper	109	(8)
Reception	117	(6)
Virginal	123	(6)
Simples	129	(10)
The Girl of Ashes	139	(92)
Flowers for the Dead	141	(11)
Plague and Luarantine	152	(8)
The Nowbere Windmill	160	(11)
Invitations	171	(13)
A Fair Light on a Full Table	184	(12)
Wind and Tide	196	(8)
The Girl of Ashes	204	(7)
Finery	211	(10)
Spine and Chamber	221	(5)
Collapses	226	(5)
The Gallery of God's Mistakes	231	(70)
Campaigns	233	(8)
The Gallery of God's Mistakes	241	(12)
Cinderella	253	(4)
Van Stolk and van Antum	257	(9)
The Night before the Ball	266	(15)
The Changeling	281	(3)
Small Magic	284	(8)
Tulip and Turnips	292	(9)
The Ball	301	(59)
The Medici Ball	303	(19)
Clarissa of Aragon	322	(12)
Midnight	334	(11)
A Most Unholy Night	345	(6)
The Second Slipper	351	(9)
Epilogue Stories Written in Oils	360