By Gennarose Nethercott ★★★★★
Described most broadly, Thistlefoot is about two estranged siblings, Isaac and Bellatine Yaga, who are reunited after receiving a strange inheritance. Isaac meanders through life as a street performer / con artist, while Bellatine is a woodworker struggling to make ends meet. When they receive notice that a great-grandmother they’ve never met has left them something substantial as an inheritance, they must come to New York to claim it. Upon arrival, they come to find that the inheritance is actually a house, shipped in from Eastern Europe. But not just any house! This house is sentient, and it can walk around on a pair of giant chicken legs.
At this point, you’re probably going, “Um, WTF”, or as one friend said to me when I described the book, “And, what was it that made you want to read this?” It is, admittedly, a weird setup, but trust me, it works.
The Yaga siblings christen the house “Thistlefoot” and debate what to do next. Isaac wants nothing to do with the house, but he is low on cash. For Bellatine, this feels like the stability she has been missing in her life, and she quickly finds herself growing attached to Thistlefoot. Ultimately they end up striking a bargain. Bellatine agrees to join Isaac in a revival of their parents’ traveling puppet show (something she abhors and fears, for reasons that are gradually revealed) and perform it with Isaac for a year. In exchange, Isaac will gift her his half of the house (and keep half of the profits from the traveling show).
But wait, there’s more! Enter a mysterious creature known as the Longshadow Man, who can manipulate people into doing terrible, murderous things, and who is on a singular mission to find Thistlefoot and destroy it for reasons I shall leave mysterious, dear reader.
If you’re super worldly and tuned in to Eastern European folklore, you may be saying to yourself “A house on chicken legs? Yaga siblings…as in Baba Yaga?” If so, you’d be correct. Baba Yaga is a character from Eastern folklore. She is a bit of a mystery in folklore -- Baba Yaga is neither hero nor villain, but she lives in a house in the forest on chicken legs, so author Nethercott didn’t come up with this wacky idea out of thin air (Nethercott is actually a folklorist when she’s not writing my book of the year).
The novel focuses on a ton of interesting themes -- the complex relationship of siblings, existing in a world where you feel like you don’t fit in, and the importance of preserving history, to name a few -- and it’s sitting in this spot on my list based on that, as well as being one of the more beautifully written books I read this year. Nethercott has a wonderful command of the English language, and I was unsurprised to learn she has been a poet for some time before finally trying her hand at a novel (Thistlefoot is her first). She leverages alliteration frequently to give the novel a lyrical quality. I’ll give you a small example:
“Isaac Yaga curtsied before the crowd, his black thrift-store suit splitting slightly at the knees. He had obsidian hair that levitated in soft waves around his head, as if experimenting with gravity. His face was pale and narrow, punctuated by a leaning, crow-like nose and pupils sharp as polished lead. If he had eaten well in the past month, you wouldn’t know it, his skeleton floating inside the old suit with room to spare.”
And so, there you have it! The setup is a little weird but honestly not as strange as it sounds. The plot is solid, the novel has layers and depth of meaning, with multi-dimensional characters you’ll love getting to know. Trust me on this one -- it’s great!
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