Imogen and her sister Marin have escaped their
cruel mother to attend a prestigious artists’ retreat, but soon learn
that living in a fairy tale requires sacrifices, be it art or love.
What would you sacrifice in the name of success? How much does an artist need to give up to create great art?
Imogen
has grown up reading fairy tales about mothers who die and make way for
cruel stepmothers. As a child, she used to lie in bed wishing that her
life would become one of these tragic fairy tales because she couldn’t
imagine how a stepmother could be worse than her mother now. As adults,
Imogen and her sister Marin are accepted to an elite post-grad arts
program—Imogen as a writer and Marin as a dancer. Soon enough, though,
they realize that there’s more to the school than meets the eye. Imogen
might be living in the fairy tale she’s dreamed about as a child, but
it’s one that will pit her against Marin if she decides to escape her
past to find her heart’s desire.
268 pages
Published May 17, 2016
This is a novel that, if you go into it expecting a happily-ever-after sort of fairy tale just because the story involves fairies, you're going to not only be disappointed, but absolutely gutted. The ending is a tremendously satisfying thing, don't get me wrong, but there's some bitter mixed in with the sweet, and it comes after a couple of hundred pages of trauma and stress and difficult circumstances that I feel readers might need some content warnings for.
Roses and Rot's story focuses on Imogen, a writer who, along with her sister Marin, gained entrance to a prestigious artist retreat, a place where they could spend months surrounded by beauty and creativity and be mentored as they try to push their art to a higher place. For many artists, this alone would be worth doing, even if they got nothing out of it beyond a few months with a strong mentor who helped them enhance their art. But the retreat, Melete, holds a strange secret, a fantastical element that will pit Imogen and Marin against each other in a struggle for a prize that both of them desperately crave.
As for content warnings... Imogen and Marin's mother abused them both, mentally and physically, though saved her worst punishments for Imogen because Imogen wrote and that wasn't seen as "good enough" by her mother. Too much potential for stories with bad mothers that made people ask questions. But she doted on Marin to a degree, always being supportive of her choice to dance... so long as she could shine the limelight on herself. "Look at me, I'm the mother of that prodigy onstage, it's all thanks to me than she's so talented." People with a history of parental abuse should be forewarned before reading Roses and Rot, as the back of the book saying, "she couldn’t imagine how a stepmother could be worse than her mother now," really doesn't convey just how terrible, how terrifying, their mother was to them. Reading what they went through, I felt such revulsion over that woman's actions to her children that I wanted to both praise the author for writing such horrors with the proper emotional flavour, and also to just put the book down and back away for a while. It's so well-done, but people with backgrounds filled with parental trauma might find it a bit too well-done.
That being said, sometimes people need to be aware that others, especially parents, are capable of that sort of behaviour. How many times have fellow child-free folks heard, "It's fine, you'll be a good parent when you have kids." Not everybody is a good parent. Nobody can guarantee that anyone will be a good parent. Some people are horrible, cruel and abusive, and while I'm more than passingly aware of how traumatic that could be for readers, I still have to commend the author for shining a light on an issue that many would prefer remained behind closed doors.
It's not what a lot of people would think of as a "modern fairy tale," but for me it checks the boxes. A character with a cruel mother figure. A place in the woods that feels like magic and salvation. A problem to be solved, taking the form of a quest. Fairy rules and bargains. Nearly everything you'd expect to see from a fairy tale is there, so long as you don't expect the whole thing to be about knights and princesses.
I was going to talk about how the main way it diverges from a lot of fairy tales is that it doesn't really have a moral message to give to readers. I was going to say that grey-and-grey morality is all over the place in Roses and Rot, with characters having to judge things for themselves and all coming to different understandings of the situation and no character is really portrayed as making "the right choice." Just the right choice for them. Sometimes even if it hurts others. But in writing that, I changed my mind. Roses and Rot does have a moral to it. The moral is, "Don't treat others like they're only here for your convenience."
It's clear to see how that connects to Imogen and Marin's mother seeing her daughters as either routes to her own fame and accolades, or nuisances to be disposed of when they become inconvenient. But that's not the only way this message appears in the novel. Helena's mother viewing her daughter as a stepping-stone to getting her old lover back. Evan letting his fame go to his head and doing whatever he wanted, heedless of who got hurt in the process.
It should be said that I don't think this is the same thing as, "Don't be selfish." Imogen is selfish in wanting to become to tithe to the fairies in exchange for success and thus being able to provide herself and Marin safety from their mother. Marin is selfish for wanting to become the tithe for very similar reasons. Gavin could be seen as selfish for wanting Marin to not become the tithe, because despite her wanting it, he thinks the risk to her would be too great and conspires to prevent her from attaining her goals. Even the concept of Melete itself is selfishly motivated, gaining a reputation for boosting artists so that it can attract the sort of person who can feed the fairies throughout the period of the tithe. Selfishness is all over the place here. But even most of the selfishness is cut heavily with being selfish for selfless reasons. (I think that makes sense.) Imogen and Marin both want success so they can help the other. Gavin doesn't want Marin to die. Melete still serves a wonderful purpose for helping artists with contacts and mentoring and everything else you typically get from a residency. The difference between the two concepts being how one treats others during this selfishness.
It's fine to want things. It's fine to want things for yourself even if that means other people might not get those same things. That's not inherently wrong. What matters in the end is how you treat other people along the way. If you see your chance at success coming only at the cost of someone else's lack of success, and you think to yourself, "I could make myself look better by making them look worse," or, "I could pretend to help them while secretly sabotaging them," then you're a garbage person. "I do my absolute personal best to win this contest, even if that means someone else loses," is different. That doesn't mean it's not a painful choice to make, or doesn't mean there are no drawbacks to your success. But using others as stepping stones to your own greatness is where the line gets drawn. I think the novel is pretty clear about that, as the underlying morality.
Roses and Rot offers a wonderful look at the bonds of sisterhood, and how they can hold or break in dire circumstance. It asks readers to ponder what they themselves might trade in exchange for success and safety. It gives a classic fairy tale experience, the darker non-Disney kind of secret trades and the unknown in every shadow and the strange wonder of heartbreak and possibility. Imogen's perspective is raw and emotional, full of the kind of poetry you'd expect from a character who's literally spending a significant amount of the novel writing about fairy tales. You get a full physical sense of the scenery of Melete's grounds, and the emotional depth of Imogen's fears and hopes. Conflict and dreams tug at your heart with every turn of the page.
(I wrote more about this book than I expected to.)
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