Stories Out of Omarie

Wendy Walker, Stories Out of Omarie (Sun and Moon, 1995) I have said it in my reviews of her other two books, and I will say it again: Wendy Walker is, if not America's greatest living writer, in the top three or four. The only thing I can say against her is that she's released so few books; I realize it takes a great deal of time to craft such meticulous (and spectacular) prose-- word on the street has it Walker revised The Secret Service for two decades prior to publication-- but that doesn't mean I'm not champing at the bit for more. Accordingly, I have spaced my reading of Walker's three extant books, one novel and two books of short stories, over seven years, hoping that there might be a fourth waiting for me at the end of the road. Alas, there is not, so I will wait, as patiently as possible, for book number four. Stories Out of Omarie, as the title suggests, is one of the books of short stories (the other is The Sea-Rabbit, or, The Artist of Life, and it is just as exquisite as this one). The book is comprised of adaptations and rewritings of tales to be found in the Lais of Marie de France, which are also well worth reading if you can find a decent translation (of you're fluent in medieval French, in which case I'd like to hire you as a tutor). As the title also suggests, one finds many knights involved in various derring-do, maidens who are perhaps not as maidenly as one might suspect at first glance, a number of mythical and/or magical creatures, both of human lineage and no, and some morality play. All of which is quite typical for what is, in essence, a book of fairy tales; what it is that sets Walker apart, as it does with the more current group of writers coming to be known as the mythpunks, is the style, the attention to detail not just in the story but in the language in which it was constructed. It's no surprise that I constantly compare the mythpunk writers to Walker in almost every review; I was long convinced she was the douenne of the group, though I have since found out, to equal measures of delight and chagrin, that none of them had ever heard of the woman. Which allowed me one of my favorite pastimes-- turning people on to the sheer, unadulterated joy that is the writing of Wendy Walker. Allow me to do the same for you, if I haven't already gotten to you; each of Wendy Walker's other books has been at the top of my Best Reads of the Year list in the years I read them, and it's entirely possible that Stories Out of Omarie will follow suit. It takes some doing these days, since Walker's writing is criminally neglected and all of it is now out of print, but do whatever you must to hunt her books down, and then take them in small doses, like fine cognac. They go down just as smooth and leave the same warm feeling in the belly. Wendy Walker is a national treasure, and should be treated as such. **** ½