num_pages: 288
description: In this witty and exuberant collection of feminist retellings of traditional Japanese folktales humans live side by side with spirits who provide a variety of useful servicesfrom truth-telling to babysitting from protecting castles to fighting crime.A busybody aunt who disapproves of hair removal; a pair of door-to-door saleswomen hawking portable lanterns; a cheerful lover who visits every night to take a luxurious bath; a silent house-caller who babysits and cleans while a single mother is out working. Where the Wild Ladies Are is populated by these and many other spirited womenwho also happen to be ghosts. This is a realm in which jealousy stubbornness and other excessive feminine passions are not to be feared or suppressed but rather cultivated; and chances are a man named Mr. Tei will notice your talents and recruit you dead or alive (preferably dead) to join his mysterious company.In this witty and exuberant collection of linked stories Aoko Matsuda takes the rich millennia-old tradition of Japanese folktalesshapeshifting wives and foxes magical trees and wellsand wholly reinvents them presenting a world in which humans are consoled guided challenged and transformed by the only sometimes visible forces that surround them.
language: English
title: Where the Wild Ladies Are
publisher: Soft Skull