For Electric Literature, I had the honor of talking to my friend Addie Tsai about Unwieldy Creatures, her queer, biracial, Asian, gender-swapped retelling of Frankenstein, out now from Jaded Ibis Press. Below is an excerpt from my introduction to our exchange:
"Critics often speak of Frankenstein as a cautionary tale about human ingenuity as it goes several steps too far in reshaping natural laws, but Tsai brings to our attention an aspect of Shelley’s Frankenstein that has become overlooked, and that is our ability as a human race to love and care for beings that fall outside society’s norms. Are beautiful and perfect bodies that conform to social norms of presentation and behavior the only bodies that we are capable of loving? I talked to Tsai, over email, about how the retelling of a classic tale can unearth such overlooked questions that are especially relevant today."
Read the rest of our conversation here and purchase your copies of Unwieldy Creatures here.
"Critics often speak of Frankenstein as a cautionary tale about human ingenuity as it goes several steps too far in reshaping natural laws, but Tsai brings to our attention an aspect of Shelley’s Frankenstein that has become overlooked, and that is our ability as a human race to love and care for beings that fall outside society’s norms. Are beautiful and perfect bodies that conform to social norms of presentation and behavior the only bodies that we are capable of loving? I talked to Tsai, over email, about how the retelling of a classic tale can unearth such overlooked questions that are especially relevant today."
Read the rest of our conversation here and purchase your copies of Unwieldy Creatures here.
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