Pandora by Holly Hollander - Gene Wolfe ****
By Brian Clegg
This is a real oddity – in my quest to re-read my Gene Wolfe collection and review the books I hadn’t covered so far, I’d mentally pigeonholed this 1990 book as urban fantasy, but it’s actually a murder mystery. Being Wolfe, things aren’t as straightforward as you might imagine, though. The book is allegedly written by the seventeen-year-old Holly, just edited and smartened up by Wolfe.
It’s set in the 1980s, but the feel of the place (and this teen’s viewpoint) is very much not post-punk – it’s more like something from the Mad Men era. Trivial example: Holly and her friends never cuss (as she would probably put it). Like Castleview this is a slice of small town American life, but here seen through the eyes of a young would-be author.
The Pandora reference is to a mysterious box, to be opened at the town fair, with a prize if anyone guesses what’s in it. At this point there’s a sudden transition to murder mystery, with Holly both injured and acting as amateur sleuth, assisted by her new friend, the unlikely-named Aladdin Blue a twenty-something who styles himself a criminologist as (having been to jail) he can’t be a private eye.
Although some of Holly’s writing is cringe-making, she can be refreshingly blunt and bitchy, for example describing the sister-in-law of her best friend as follows: ‘Basically what she had was one of those thin poor-li’l-me hillbilly faces, with lots of yellow hair as puffy as cotton candy (and sticky, too, I’d bet) piled up on top, and a shape like a sack of grapefruit.’
The mystery is suitably convoluted in what’s probably best described as a long novella, and though Aladdin Blue is a little too capable, the indirect approach of making this Holly’s book works pretty well, if you bear in mind she may not always be an entirely accurate witness.
You can buy Pandora by Holly Hollander (used on paper but still on Kindle) from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.
Source: http://brianclegg.blogspot.com/2025/06/pandora-by-holly-hollander-gene-wolfe.html
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