Review: The Hawkman: A Fairy Tale of the Great War

The Hawkman: A Fairy Tale of the Great War by Jane Rosenberg LaForge
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5 Stars

The Hawkman is a hybrid retelling of the well-known La Belle et la Bête/ The Beauty and the Beast by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and a lesser-known tale by the Brothers Grimm, Der Bärenhäuter (The Bearskin). (You can read a summary of the Brothers Grimm story below,* or read about it yourself here.) These two fairy tales are superimposed upon or interwoven with the story of Michael Evans Sheehan, a traumatized veteran of the Great War (World War I) and Eva William, the angel that saves him. This is a very poignant, quiet story. As you move past the prologue it is easy to somehow forget how things will end. The story of how we get to that prologue is unbearably sad. This is an unusual book of magical realism that will appeal to those who enjoy books that are more literary in tone. By the book’s end, I was in tears.


*In Der Bärenhäuter (The Bearskin) a young man, having served and survived a great war, finds himself without means or purpose at the war's end. Making a bargain with the Devil to become a gentleman of means, by assuming an unpleasant, animal-like appearance by wearing a bearskin for seven years. Midway through his years in the bearskin, he meets a penniless father, depressed over the plight his circumstances have put him and his three daughters in, and gives the old man money in addition to paying his present debts. The man offers the kindly bearskin wearer one of his daughters as a wife. The older two daughters shrink in horror at the thought but the youngest, a gentle and faithful girl, who unlike her older sisters, manages to see the path of righteousness (the Brothers Grimm were devout Calvinists and this was a time when women were chattel) and loyally pledges herself to him. When he returns to the inn after his seven years are finished, he is clean, handsome, and rich. The youngest daughter is rewarded for her loyalty to him with marriage. The two older sisters, kicking themselves for refusing to marry a bearskin wearing man, commit suicide, granting the Devil two souls instead of the single one he held claim to for the seven years the hero wore the bearskin.


I received a Digital Review Copy from Amberjack Publishing, NetGalley and Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review.




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