Advertisement

In genre fiction, families are often either terrorized victims of chainsaw wielding maniacs, or nostalgic bubbly after-school-special caricatures wrapped in kid-safe behaviors and words. Nina Kiriki Hoffman's coming-of-age novel, A Fistful of Sky, plays the field near the latter, unfurling its mysteries in to-the-point plotting bounded by Hoffman's home-cooked narrative musings on philosophical questions of identity, sibling rivalry, power, and love. Packed with curious variations on the old "what would you do with magic powers" theme, the tale is a whimsical romp through adolescence to adulthood that mostly succeeds in drawing the reader along to the wistful end.

Gypsum LaZelle, named with her siblings after various precious stones, is a refreshingly average, ordinary female who happens to come from a family invested with uncanny talents. She's overweight, shuns makeup, sports a dumpy but practical wardrobe, and doesn't get out much. Each member of her family begins life powerless, passing through something called "transition" (a metaphor for puberty here) and gaining tremendous magical talents that can vary wildly. Gyp (as she is known) fails to transition until she turns twenty, an unusually late age. Compounding problems, her power is one of the "unkind" variety -- the power of curses. Steeped in the obstacle course mythology of sometimes smooth, sometimes rocky family relationships, the story becomes a collection of haphazard confrontations and serendipitous awakenings.

Hoffman creates a viable, internally consistent mythological framework to soundboard several sophisticated logic puzzles. Power in the LaZelle family operates like a mystical ever-charging battery pack and must be dispersed daily, lest the wielder become uncomfortable to the points of sickness. Extended charging without release can lead to death, and it turns out a relative of the family who received curse power has died, unable -- or unwilling -- to find a way to channel the power benignly. The story's surface conundrum is thus Gyp's quest to find a practical means of dispensing her curse energy without destroying herself or the people she loves in the process.

Beneath the fantastical pyrotechnics, though, this is a very personal story about the perils and pleasures of kith and kin. Power is a physical extension of will, wishes and curses function as manifestations of contracts or conflicts, culminating in a struggle to contend with the limitations and liberations of imagination. During Gyp's initial transition, she inadvertently creates a sort of doppelganger, allowing Hoffman to thrust her protagonist into a rattling confrontation between self and Other.

"She stepped closer and hugged me. Why had I thought she was tall when she stood outside the center under the orange light? She was my exact height. She kissed my cheek. Her lips were hot, almost brand-hot. She pressed her lips to mine. I struggled and tried to pull away from her, because this seemed so strange and wrong, but she was stronger than I was. She wouldn't let go. The heat of her kiss spread through me. I felt strange, uncomfortable, excited."

Matthew Peckham is the pen name of Matthew Peckham. He holds a Master's Degree in English Creative Writing and is currently employed by a railroad.