Mysterion, September 2023
Reviewed by Seraph
This is not, by far, the first creative retelling of the Nativity sequence of the Bible that I’ve read. And it is creative, to give credit where credit is due. Quite frankly, if a somewhat psychotic (but mostly just confused), cult-leading, bisexual (or possibly just confused) version of Mary is your cup of tea, then this story is for you. If not, you’ll probably just end up confused. Vi is a somewhat shy teenage girl who, as she says, is “sidekick material.” Which mostly means that she doesn’t stand out, but isn’t invisible either, and she forms the rational voice in this retelling. Amal is a pretty, socially advantaged teenage girl who enjoys the spotlight and likes to shock, who is the formerly described “Mary” of this story. The setting is modern American, revolving around the high school period of the two girls’ lives, but the ending in the hospital is the real twist you’re waiting for throughout the reading. The writing isn’t bad at all: the pace is steady, the voices that narrate are clear, and a significant amount of time and effort are spent actually defining the characters that give us the two main voices, which is not always common in short story format. Again, credit where it is due. Despite my misgivings about this particular story, I now want to read other stories by the author, and that to me is the mark of a good writer.
That being said, the one thing that seems to be common to most, if not all of the creative retellings of pre-existing stories (unmistakably biblical, in this case) is the need to modernize, to alter, and to change them into something more familiar. Some try to make it more relatable, some try to make it more shocking, and some manage to do both of those in the same story, but the common thread is that need to take something that is difficult to believe or understand, and make it more familiar. This effort to twist, to alter, to modernize pre-existing stories is a flaw, and not one unique to this style of story. It is post-modernism at its finest, and all too common as of late.