When Women Were Dragons: an enduring, feminist novel from New York Times bestselling author, Kelly Barnhill

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After that day, Auntie Marla continued to come by the house early each morning and stay long after my father came home from work, only returning to her own home after the nighttime dishes were done and the floors were swept and my mother and father were in bed. She cooked and managed and played with me during my mother’s endless afternoon lie-­downs. She ran the house, and only went to her job at the mechanic’s shop on Saturdays, though this made my father cross, as he had no idea what to do with me, or my mother, for a whole day by himself.

In the 1950s Alexandra "Alex" Green, the only child of an absentee father and a stern housewife mother, grows up under the influence of her beloved aunt Marla. In 1955 Marla leaves Alex her texts and love letters between her and several women before disappearing during the mass dragoning event of 1955 in which women morphed into dragons. This motif is repeated throughout the novel: knots of string and twine and wire forming and unravelling, as women try to stop themselves from dragoning. There is a supernatural element to this, as on occasion Alex views her world as a mirage, changing before:

In this timely and timeless speculative novel, award-winning author Kelly Barnhill boldly explores rage, memory, and the tyranny of forced limitations. When Women Were Dragons exposes a world that wants to keep women small--their lives and their prospects--and examines what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve. In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio, Barnhill shares that the book’s kernel came to her while listening to the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings with her middle-school daughter. “I was so mad,” she says. She decided then and there to write a book about “a bunch of 1950s housewives who turn into dragons.” This isn’t as odd as it may sound. Barnhill concurrently released a book for young adults, “The Ogress and the Orphans,” that includes dragons. These fiery, powerful beasts were on the brain.

Completely fierce, unmistakably feminist, and subversively funny. - Bonnie Garmus, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry No one will tell her why her mother disappears for months, and her unmarried Aunt Marla moves in to take care of the family. Or why her father disappears into his work, sometimes not returning home at night. Time, in our experience, is linear, but in truth time is also looped. It is like a piece of yarn, in which each section of the strand twists and winds around every other - a complicated and complex knot, in which one part cannot be viewed out of context from the others. Everything touches everything else. Everything affects everything else. Each loop, each bend, each twist interact with each other. It is all connected, and it is all one. There is very little I don’t love about this book. The prose is luscious, the setting - 1950/60s USA - is atmospheric in it’s stiflingly wilful silence, and the arc of Alex, the main character, is heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal measure.

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I remember the far-­off rumble of a revving engine. This was likely my aunt, fixing yet another neighbor’s car. My aunt was a mechanic, and people said she had magic hands. She could take any broken machine and make it live again.

We learn about the work of the “Wyvern Research Collective”, an underground collective of researchers, scientists, doctors, and librarians, spearheaded by Mrs. Gyzinska’s friend Dr. Gantz—who turns out to be Professor H.M. Gantz M.D. Ph. D, author of the 1948 book “Some Basic Facts about Dragons: A Physician’s Explanation”, of which all copies are supposed to have been destroyed. On March 12th 1960, Dr. Gantz had been tried before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and found guilty. If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism. Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.” Barnhill’s sharp and lyrical prose showcases the joys and agonies of female power in this coming-of-age/alternate history." I also loved the inclusion of LGBTQ+ rep with both Marla and Alex being lesbian and a mention (during a study) of trans women transforming into dragons, though I would’ve liked to have explored more of their stories alongside Marla and Alex’s.What can’t be named can’t be questioned in this new novel by Minneapolis writer Kelly Barnhill, which immerses readers in a post-World War II period of conformity and repression with a speculative twist. A] riveting historical fantasy...What’s surprising about Barnhill’s rare foray into adult fiction is its subversiveness and feminist rage. It’s a powerful, searing novel that feels deeply true, despite its magical premise." Barnhill transforms that suppressed rage into a wellspring of power, creating an alternate timeline where women told to suffer in silence instead spontaneously transform into dragons, often immolating abusive men in the process.

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Kelly Barnhill goes on to specify what prompted her to write this tale. It was an allegation of historical sexual assault by the professor of psychology, Christine Blasey Ford, against the judge Brett Kavanaugh, who would later become an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. I am English, and had not been aware of this, and can’t make a proper assessment, but whatever the truth, wiki makes it clear that it was an extremely nasty and protracted case, with accusations of “victim blaming”. Kelly Barnhill is adamant, saying that: Overall, this was a powerfully moving, feminist and wonderfully queer coming of age story that I absolutely LOVED! The pacing was a little slow but I felt it worked well with the atmospheric and detailed storytelling—particularly the historical accounts, newspaper clippings, diary entries and other “classified” dragon related items that are scattered throughout the narrative which added a depth and richness to the world building.Alex, our main character – bright, academically inclined and with zero plans to marry in a time when keeping house and raising babies was all women were good for - was a child when the day known as The Mass Dragoning took place and her aunt sprouted wings and took to the skies. As per the blurb, Alex is forced into silence and now must live with the consequences; a mother more protective than ever, a father growing increasingly distant, a dragon obsessed cousin she must now call sister and an aunt she must forget ever existed. Almost straightaway this aspect alerts us to the fact that this book is something other than a fantasy. Why are we following the day to day life of Alex, and ignoring the dragons? The author must be telling us something else. We recognise the feminist slant, seeing that the focus is strongly on females, the few males evident being pompous, ignorant or merely inept. (Fortunately there are two notable exceptions, Dr. Gantz and the assistant librarian and closet theoretical physicist, Mr. Burrows which saves this from becoming a travesty.) The novel is exploring and exploding the idea of a woman’s place in the world, and we can sense the barely suppressed rage of some of these characters. Set in the 1950s, this must then be partly about the tyranny of enforced limitations. I heard the low rumble of my father’s car arriving at our house around lunchtime. This was highly unusual because he never came home during a workday. I approached the window and pressed my nose to the glass, making a singular, round smudge. He curled out of the driver’s-side door and adjusted his hat. He patted the smooth curves of the hood as he crossed over and opened the passenger door, his hand extended. Another hand reached out. I held my breath. Eventually, her house was boarded up and her yard grew over and her garden became a tangled mass. People walked by her house without giving it a second glance.