Experimental theater and fairy tales combine in ‘Flashout'
'It really did feel revolutionary,' says Soloski. 'It must've been just electric and you really felt like you were daring something.' The novel's experimental theater troupe works on a project based on the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm — 'the real stories, the unexpurgated stories,' Soloski adds. 'There's a lot more blood than the tales that I had read as a child, a lot more terrible things happen.'
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From Soloski's perspective, looking at radical theater from a modern lens raises a lot of questions, particularly about power and consent and accountability. 'I wanted to explore that tension of young women, feeling that they have a kind of power because they are seen as desirable, and not having very much power at all, and being told that they are responsible for the things that happened to them,' she says, 'when actually that may really be out of their hands.'
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In the novel's 1997 timeline, the young woman is now middle-aged, a drama teacher at a private high school, when she finds herself dragged back into the mysterious violence of the troupe's final, deadly, European tour, and her own complicity.
'I don't believe in perfect victims,' says Soloski. 'I thought it was interesting to have someone who we could reasonably describe as a victim, who was also a perpetrator. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and I think sometimes bad things happen to bad people, and they still deserve as much sympathy as we can afford.'
Alexis Soloski will read at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, August 19, at
And now for some recommendations….
Bill McKibben has written more than twenty books, including works about climate change that have helped focus our attention on the urgent need for change. In '
'
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Doug Most's 'Racing Underground' illuminated the fascinating history of the nation's subways. In '
Addie E. Critchens is a native of Mississippi who has explored her home state's histories and mythologies in both short fiction and journalism. In her debut novel, '
In '
Kate Tuttle edits the Globe's books section.
Kate Tuttle, a freelance writer and critic, can be reached at
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