Gregory Maguire is the author of Wicked, the revisionist Wizard of Oz tale adapted into a long-running Broadway musical. His new novel, The Oracle of Maracoor, continues the adventures of Rain, granddaughter of the Wicked Witch of the West.
The Once and Future King by T.H. White (1958)
In the 1970s, teen geek readers swore either by J.R.R. Tolkien or T.H. White. I chose White's tragicomedy of the education, rise, and death of King Arthur. The story is audaciously retold, as if the Arthurian cycle were not already one of our foundational myths. It probably inspired me to risk my own appropriation of Oz. Buy it here.
Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or There Must Be More to Life by Maurice Sendak (1967)
A Sealyham terrier, Jennie, adventures into the trippy afterlife to find that mortal appetites are eternal after all. The gray-tint, cross-hatched drawings evoke George Cruikshank and Samuel Palmer, but the mordancy is vintage Sendak. Buy it here.
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Before text messaging was invented, O'Hara reveled in staccato rhythm with immediacy and delight. Single phrases can sting with accuracy: "the smog of desire"; "democratic and ordinary and tired"; "a dead dog bloated as a fraise"; "all I want is a room up there / and you in it"; "joy seems to be inexorable." Buy it here.
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