I talked a little bit about Indexing by Seanan McGuire in my Monday Update this week. In case you missed that episode, the premise here is that a secret government agency uses the Aarne-Thompson Index to identify fairy tales when they happen in real life (referred to as Mimetic Incursions) and try to minimize the damage they cause. A force referred to as the "narrative" can alter people's perceptions and impulses, and even reshape reality to make these stories play out over and over again. The people cast as the central figures generally referred to by the ATI numbers of their stories (A Snow White is a 709, a Sleeping Beauty is a 410), while other living plot elements can be identified by the number of the story they've been pulled into, but are more likely to be named: a Wicked Stepsister, a Prince, a Shoemaker's Elf.
Protagonist Henrietta "Henry" Marchen is a 709 in "abeyance" who started life as half of a Snow White and Rose Red (426) before her twin brother turned out to be a trans guy, and the narrative rewrote her as the other, unrelated kind of Snow White. This is attributed to the fact that most people who are even aware of Snow White and Rose Red don't actually know that the two Snow Whites aren't connected. The role of belief, and particularly changes in how people think about fairy tales, in how they play out, is emphasized throughout the story. The ATI Management Bureau deals with Peter Pans and Little Mermaids, even though both stories are too new to be in the actual ATI. And the climax hinges on the likely origin of Snow White in older, more brutal stories of ritual sacrifice to ensure the harvest and the return of spring.
The storytelling starts out very episodic, and becomes more connected as the plot unveils itself. This is not at all an unreasonable given that the novel was originally released as a Kindle Serial, coming out in single chapters every two weeks. While there is a sequel, this feels more like on of McGuire's standalones, inasmuch as it doesn't (entirely) start with a small job that's unconnected to the main plot but creates room to introduce the characters and the setting. I mean, it does open with a relatively small job, but they end up hiring one of the people involved.
The prose is up to McGuire's usual standard, using clear and undistracting language, crafting evocative images through mildly synesthetic description (I don't know what color "poison apple green" is, but at the same time I do know, you know?), and allowing the self-aware, grown-up first person protagonist to tell and show what she's feeling. Readers highly familiar with McGuire's writing may be able t predict some lines of narration word for word. To be clear, this is a question of writing style, not characterization. Henry Marchen is not October Daye (however similar her early morning crankiness in the first few pages might feel), nor is she Verity Price. She is a grownup from the start, self-possessed and comfortable being in a position of authority. She grew up under the care of the ATIMB, and there are a lot of normal-person things she hasn't done (like dating, and going to a bar for social rather than professional reasons), but even these unknowns don't seem to phase her much. Henry is a bit rigid in her management of her own potential fairy-tale status, and her greatest personal struggles involve integrating (rather than containing) the Snow White part of herself, and noticing and knowing what to do when the people around her are losing their goddamn minds. There's a lot of room to read mental illness or neurodivergence metaphors into the various fairy-tale statuses of the characters, but it's never forced.
Which brings me to Sloan Winters. Your mileage will almost certainly vary, but I haven't found a McGuire character this painfully relatable since Nancy Whitman, and truth be told I'm much more of a Sloan than a Nancy. Sloan is a Wicked Stepsister "frozen" in her narrative, and struggles against a constant internal monologue of spite and resentment. During the story, Sloan "manifests" and has several near misses with poisoning Henry, having to spill or throw out food or drinks that she herself poisoned. Here again, there is room to read a mental illness metaphor into the effects of the narrative, although as far as I am aware there is no mental disorder which routinely causes an overriding compulsion to poison one's friends and coworkers. (If forced to squeeze Sloan's experience into real world diagnoses, I might assess it as some toxic fantasy hybrid of OCD and Borderline or Paranoid Personality Disorder, with the compulsions gaining their force from anger and resentment over real of perceived slights, rather than irrational anxiety. Circumstances beyond her control alter her thoughts, feelings, and actions, and she just manages as best she can. And this is where it gets really remarkable, because the rest of the team unequivocally supports her. At one point she basically tells Henry "I tried to poison you like three times this week" and Henry just hugs her and says she'll look after her. Obviously this is not in all situations the best way to respond to someone struggling with impulses to literally murder you, but Henry is in a situation where she is reasonably safe doing so, and she does, and that's kind of amazing.
In the writing of this review, I went back and forth on whether I was going to give books any kind of score or rating, and now that it comes to it I find I don't like the ideas. Suffice it to say that I recommend Indexing, especially if you're already a fan of McGuire's work, are a fairy tale nerd, or look for urban fantasy with female protagonists who have their shit together.
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