Sunday Short: Selkie Stories are for Losers by Sofia Samatar

Probably one of the biggest losers to fall in love with a selkie was the man who carried her skin around in his knapsack. He was so scared she'd find it that he took the skin with him everywhere, when he went fishing, when he went drinking in the town. Then one day he had a wonderful catch of fish. There were so many that he couldn't drag them all home in his net. He emptied his knapsack and filled it with fish, and he put the skin over his shoulder, and on his way up the road to his house, he dropped it.

"Gray in front and gray in back, 'tis the very thing I lack." That's what the man's wife said, when she found the skin. The man ran to catch her, he even kissed her even though she was already a seal, but she squirmed off down the road and flopped into the water. The man stood knee-deep in the chilly waves, stinking of fish, and cried. In selkie stories, kissing never solves anything. No transformation happens because of a kiss. No one loves you just because you love them. What kind of fairy tale is that?

While I don't read or write a hell of a lot of fantasy at the moment, I think it'll always be my first love, my favourite genre, particularly when it's executed as beautifully as Sofia Samatar's Selkie Stories are for Losers. Her sense of character, loss and myth is so tenderly explored, her prose lush and the relationship that evolves between Mona and the unnamed narrator hits a reader right in the feels. I particularly loved the two mothers, and how their weaknesses and flaws were apart and removed, but so heavily informed the lives of their children. It's almost a perfect short story.

You can read 'Selkie Stories are for Losers' over on Strange Horizons.