Booksology The Shifter series of by Kim Curran are some of my favorite books of all time. I bought them when my boys were small (the books are 10-15 years old). They’re now hulking teenagers, and they’ve read and loved them too! Of all the books I’ve read that could claim to be underrated classics, the Shifter books are the most deserving of being rediscovered. Kim has been silent for some time, but now she’s back with an adult novel; a retelling of the Irish myth of the Morrigan.
It took me a few chapters to work out what The Morrigan is not. It’s not The Gael Song series by Shauna Lawless, though the two stories are cut from the same cloth. Both invoke the Tuath De Dannan, the gods of Irish folklore, but whilst Gael Song weaves myth into history, Curran’s The Morrigan, sticks to legends, reinventing the heroes and villains of Irish myth.
It was a surprisingly angry and brutal read. The Morrigan is a woman made angry by the decisions of the men around her and Curran’s reworkings are cast through that prism.
The novel is told by the Morrigan herself and, as far as I can tell, the substance of her narrative runs alongside the traditional stories. Where traditional myths often cast powerful men as their protagonists and heroes, Curran’s tale paints a different, more female-centric, narrative.
Half-term holidays interrupted my writing of this review and in the intervening time, one can’t help but feel that the book has become painfully accurate (or perhaps I should say, more painfully accurate). The Morrigan spends much of this book being angered by men with overblown opinions of themselves screwing everything up.
This is a book about strong women. It’s a book for women who have credit for their work taken by a weak man. It’s for women who have been made to feel scared by an over-aggressive man; for women who have suffered at the hands of men who feel entitled to take what they want, just because they can. It’s for the women who have died at the hands of those men.
With machismo and “strong men” filling news feeds across the globe, The Morrigan works on multiple levels. Many of us feel like the Morrigan right now. Power is in the hands of the underserving and uncaring, while recent gains in creating a more equal society, feel like they have been trampled over.
Being a male reader of the book, I feel barely qualified to comment on it. (And yet, I risk incurring the Morrigan’s wrath by choosing to do so.) I can never experience the stacked system that Curran rails against. The best I can do is acknowledge it, hope to support the women around me, and raise my 3 boys in a way that helps them understand the power imbalance inherent in the system. This is a “woke” view, that is very much under attack right now; usually by men who are all too recognizable in the male characters found in Curran’s book.
From having read the Gael Song series, as well as many other bits of Irish mythology that have seeped into fantasy writing over the years, I was vaguely aware of the characters and stories Curran invokes in The Morrigan. Her retelling is invigorating. Whilst written in the first person it retains a detachment that one associates with folk tales. Whilst she may be angry, the Morrigan as storyteller feels like a reliable narrator. She describes her anger dispassionately, but that does not make it burn any less bright.
For anybody wanting to explore Irish myths and its pantheon, The Morrigan makes an excellent starting point. Its anger is unsettling, but I feel like if we’re going to get through the next few years, all of us, not least our political leaders, are going to need to burn with the same righteous passion as The Morrigan. There is injustice in the world and it’s how you stand up to it that counts.
It was great to read a new novel from Kim Curran. Whilst this is a standalone novel, I do hope it is not too long before she brings up something new.
If you would like to pick up a copy of The Morrigan you can do so here, in the US, and here, in the UK. (Affiliate Link)
If you enjoyed this review, check out my other book reviews, here.
I received a copy of this book in order to write this review.
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