The Good Fairies of New York

Synopsis: Morag and Heather, two eighteen-inch fairies with swords, green kilts and badly dyed hair fly through the window of the worst violinist in New York, an overweight and antisocial type named Dinnie, and vomit on his carpet. Who they are, how they came to New York and what this has to do with the lovely Kerry - who lives across the street, and has Crohn's Disease, and is making a flower alphabet - and what this has to do with the other fairies (of all nationalities) of New York, not to mention the poor repressed fairies of Britain, is the subject of this book. It has a war in it, and a most unusual production of Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and Johnny Thunders' New York Dolls guitar solos. What more could anyone desire from a book?

Review: If you like your fairies to be demure twinkly little things then you won't like this book. These fairies are whisky swilling, aggressive, potty mouthed and loose (in the moral sense of the world, it's perfectly ok for instance for brother and sister fairies to have 'relations' together .. in that way they're more akin to the animal kingdom than the human one,) and the style takes some getting used to, it's quite erratic, jumping from plotline to plotline, sometimes all on one page, in a jerky rather frenetic style. The fairies in New York are a bit of a mixed bunch, there is Morag and Heather (my personal favourites) a couple of Scottish fairies who are on the run (they are in disgrace after cutting up what they took to be an old sheet to make blankets, only it turned out to be 'The MacLeod Fairy Banner .. and to have the murderous MacLeod's after you is a fate worse than death.) They fall out very soon after arriving (which seems to be the story of their lives .. the MacPherson and MacKintosh clans being natural enemies) and take up residence with two humans .. the beautiful, flower loving, free spirited, Kerry who is suffering from Crohn's Disease and who just wants to be able to play all of the New York Dolls guitar solos and the obese, lazy and uncouth Dinnie who is obsessed by the TV sex channel and who plays the violin badly.

Morag and Heather are very funny, making jokes at each others expense, getting into fights and scrapes and generally causing mayhem wherever they go. The book does focus on these two in particular and I'm glad it does because I found them to be the best and funniest characters. Also in New York, dazed and confused after consuming too much whisky, beer and magic mushrooms are five more fairies who have run away from their tyrant leader .. Tala fairy king of Cornwall .. including his rightful heirs Petal and Tulip. Back in Cornwall King Tala is furious and wants them found at all costs (fearing that the rebels he is already fighting will claim them as leaders and usurp him.) Add to that the Italian, Chinese and Ghanaian fairy communities already resident in New York, Magenta the bag lady who believes she is a legendary Greek general (too much sipping on a 'Fitzroy' cocktail .. a concoction consisting of shoe polish, meth's, fruit juice and herbs) and the ghost of Johnny Thunders looking for his beloved stolen Gibson guitar and you have well, at least some of the plot.

It's great fun, but you do have to concentrate, it's all over the place and keeping track of all the threads takes effort. Also, whoever proofread it needs shooting because there are loads of mistakes (spelling mostly .. I wouldn't notice a punctuation mistake if it jumped up and bit me,) I gave up counting in the end. I think kids would enjoy it but the language and sexual references mean that it's entirely unsuitable which is a bit of a shame because, in a way, it falls between two stools. The book comes highly recommended by Neil Gaiman which is praise indeed (there's a great introduction from him saying that he didn't dare read it for five years because he was afraid it would be similar to the book he was writing 'The American Gods'.)

Entertaining but weird.