Household Tales
by Rachel Linn
Hardcover with pop-up illustrations and paper dolls
Offset printed & hand-bound by Meekling Press!
68 pages
Publication date: 4/4/2023
ISBN 978-1-950987-19-1
Edition of 150
Riffing off The Brothers Grimm’s famous collection of fairy tales, Children’s and Household Tales, this HOUSEHOLD TALES updates its tales for the 21st century, with episodes that include a dapper talking cat, a woman who births squirrels uncontrollably, and a series of quantum endings. It’s also pop-up book that includes a set of paper dolls at the end, that invites you, dear reader, to participate in its surreal adventures.
About the Author
Rachel Linn writes and illustrates across multiple forms and genres. She has published stories, essays, poetry, and translations. Her visual art merges drawing, watercolor, and needlework techniques and often takes the form of handmade books, including some to be assembled by the reader. She was the 2020 Artist-in-Residence at the Printery Book Arts Lab at Central Print St. Louis. She lives with her partner, Jessica, a fairy-tale scholar.
Praise for Household Tales
Linn’s mysterious Household Tales begins with a snowstorm that may or may not lead a couple into another dimension via tactile adventures in cut paper and feral animals. Odd and beautiful, a good read for our imaginations and our fingertips. — Kelly Froh, comic artist & co-founder of Short Run Comix & Arts Festival
By a forest, in a house buried in the snow, a husband and wife enter into a dance of creation and destruction, peeling away layers of dream and desire, along with old wallpaper. So begins Rachel Linn’s wonderful little book, Household Tales. As with every good miniature, this book invites us to peer in until we fall into its multitudes of meaning, emotion, and magic. What seemed small expands until—guided by talking animals and following the yarn of odd knitting patterns—we realize we’re in a deep meditation on the nature of motherhood and on the relationship between humans and the natural world. This book both surprises and satisfies on every page, and I can’t wait to read it again and again.— Maya Sonenberg, author of Bad Mothers, Bad Daughters: Stories (University of Notre Dame Press)
Household Tales leads the reader on a journey between liminal and real places using sensational imagery that is brought to life through Rachel’s detailed drawings and interactive elements. The illustrations, combined with the tactile quality of the pop-ups, engage us to experience our heroine’s written accounts intimately. A completely engaging collection of tales. — Marie Oberkirsch, Artist, and Director, Central Print