The Archive of Alternate Endings

by Lindsey Drager

Tracking the evolution of Hansel and Gretel at seventy-five-year intervals that correspond with earth’s visits by Halley’s Comet, The Archive of Alternate Endings explores how stories are disseminated and shared, edited and censored, voiced and left untold.

In 1456, Johannes Gutenberg’s sister uses the tale as a surrogate for sharing a family secret only her brother believes. In 1835, The Brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm revise the tale to bury a truth about Jacob even he can’t come to face. In 1986, a folklore scholar and her brother come to find the record is wrong about the figurative witch in the woods, while in 2211, twin space probes aiming to find earth's sister planet disseminate the narrative in binary code. Breadcrumbing back in time from 2365 to 1378, siblings reimagine, reinvent, and recycle the narrative of Hansel and Gretel to articulate personal, regional, and ultimately cosmic experiences of tragedy.

Through a relay of speculative pieces that oscillate between eco-fiction and psychological horror, The Archive of Alternate Endings explores sibling love in the face of trauma over the course of a millennium, in the vein of Richard McGuire's Here and Lars von Trier's Melancholia.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Historical

159 pages, Paperback

First published May 7, 2019

About the author

Her experimental novels have won a John Gardner Fiction Prize and a Shirley Jackson Award; been listed as a “Best Book of the Year” in The Guardian and NPR; and twice been named a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award.
Her work has received support from the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Study, the I-Park Foundation, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. The recipient of a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Prose, she is currently at work on two speculative multimedia projects.

Reviews

[Kevin Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a beautiful short novel, built out of connected stories. Like Gnomon or Cloud Atlas, it is a story about stories, and while these other examples take a maximalist approach, The Archive of Alternate Endings is more intimately focused, more minimal. I particularly liked the framing device of Halley's Comet, and the suture of Hansel and Gretel's story, tying the narrative tightly together.

In a possibly left-field comparison, the Halley's Comet element reminded me of Metal Hurlant / Heavy Metal, with its screaming skull flying over and through all of the story worlds.

[Michael Ferro · Rating 5 out of 5]

My live review is now up at the Michigan Quarterly Review:

We human beings are nothing more than a collection of our stories, stories which comprise the vast histories of ourselves and the world around us, for better or worse. In Lindsey Drager’s The Archive of Alternate Endings (Dzanc Books), the author takes her readers on a ride through the vast and intricate world of human storytelling and the ramifications of memory and forgetting. Drager has a unique ability to breathe life into some of history’s most unique and unassuming characters, from world-famous scientists and Renaissance thinkers, to the fictional personalities of Hansel & Gretel.

Drager’s novel follows a series of characters, sometimes loosely related, through an interesting pattern. Over the course of one millennium—from 1378 to 2365 AD— The Archive of Alternate Endings is populated by numerous characters affected by the arrival of Halley’s Comet, which visits Earth every 75ish years after completing its long trip through our solar system, curving near the Sun and zooming past our skies. Each time it arrives, our cast of characters, including the comet’s scientist discoverer himself, Halley, ponder some current societal woe plaguing our tiny blue dot.

[fatma · Rating 5 out of 5]

4-4.5 stars

"It is easy to forget, but stories need not always have a purpose. We are quick to say that folktales have a moral or a lesson or a creed. But most of the stories that have survived the ages are told for one purpose only, and that purpose is to say this: 'Being human is difficult. Here is some evidence.'"

Just absolutely exquisite storytelling. Drager has written a story about stories--in the moment of their telling and through time--and about the powerful bonds that tie siblings together. Her novel is sprawling and specific, widening and narrowing the scope of its story with beautiful fluidity. The biggest compliment I can give this book is, I would love to study it in class. Write essays about it. Talk about it with other people. It's incredibly layered and genuinely meaningful, simple in a way that makes it affect you all the more.

"In order to record a tale, something must always be lost. Some things must be left unsaid and disguised. The art of storytelling, his brother said, is all about where and how to leave the voids."

The Archive of Alternate Endings is by far the most surprising book of the year for me, not to mention a severely underrated one. I picked it up expecting nothing at all and finished it knowing it was a new favourite. I want to reread it already.

[Nate D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each documented passage of Haley’s comet, and several to come in future years, become the timepoints of evolving variations and reflections of the Hansel and Gretel story: the deep bonds of siblings cast out by parents and otherwise finding in each other their only reliable aid. Also: AIDS, queerness, stigma aimed or defied, destruction of self or other or all. It doesn’t matter, really, what Jacob Grimm’s actual sexuality was — or Hansel’s — the ghosts of historical possibility are all true enough (or else, there is Carrington’s “all stories are true”) and allow Drager to deftly weave together her themes and images across time and space. But for all the essayistic clarity or formalist precision at work here, what could have been a bloodless architecture of ideas is instead a passionately living thing that yearns and grieves and bleeds (or in one hinted instance, issues tears of blood). For all the characters flung across the chronology, their stories all somehow matter, at multiple points almost overwhelmingly so. At the center, I sense, Drager herself is not without deep stake in this. I thought I spotted her twice, but in truth I know nothing of her. In truth, a narrative like this could only work because she’s everywhere.

Back into the shelves of a favorite second-hand bookseller again, and my search image for worthwhile oddities remains reliable. I knew nothing of this book or Lindsey Drager, but it’s sublime, and I’m thrilled to know she wrote two others before this.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate what Drager is trying to do here, but I'm not sure all of it works well.

The main themes are practically mined from my obsessions: the nature of stories and story-telling, labyrinths and breadcrumbs, natural phenomena and their mathematical models, gay men and their relationships with siblings and family...

I really enjoyed the more conventional sections, with one or two narrators. After the beautiful opening section "On Breadcrumbs and Constellations", I was just about ready to give this four stars. But I couldn't get into the more experimental sections, with multiple alternating POVs. A fair amount of the text is closer to meditative essay-like musings than conventional stories. But the connections are mostly interesting, and a few of the conversations between the texts/POVs are beautifully handled.

Near the end, the Gretel/sister character says:

I try to warn him, but boys are easy to deceive.

So true.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know if other readers do this, but I often create a mental tapestry of plots for the books I read–especially the complicated books with multiple plots. I think of plots woven together to create a story. Lindsey Drager’s unusual and eloquent novel/linked short stories, The Archive of Alternate Endings, defied my usual method of visualizing a story. Part way through the stories (chapters) that make up this book, I had an epiphany. It is as though Drager wrote all of the individual stories that make up the overall book on different sheets of paper, then crumpled them all up together into a ball. Reading this book is like turning the ball around and around in one’s hands and seeing snippets of the stories. This may sound like a confusing story, but I didn’t find it that way at all. The Archive of Alternate Endings is astonishingly clear and I fell in love with what all of these stories had to say while they were all tangled up into one tale...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss, for review consideration.

[Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

41/2 stars... there is so much to unpack here 😌

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a conceptually striking, beautifully-written book. Drager is a talent, make no mistake, and I'm excited to follow her career. That said, this particular book didn't entirely resonate with me, and for all intents and purposes, it should have. It hits all my faves: a pointfully fractured narrative that centres heavily on queer themes & issues, with a focus on the uniquely potent love between siblings, the perpetuity and magic of fairy tales, and some science metaphor to boot. Few combinations are more personally appealing to me. And it might have been that it took me too long to read, but something about it never really gelled or drew me in -- it felt more like I was forcing myself to get to the finish than getting swept along by something I was desperate to fall into.

Still, I appreciate the experiment, and it's ulimately a successful one. Definitely a solid 3.5 -- just can't quite bring myself to hit 4 stars.

[Amit Verma · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of I want to say it is complex, abstact, deep, innovative and brainstorming story.
It amazes how 32 years old author creates such a heavy, melancholic and time splitting narrative.
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Story evaluates power of stories and how they survive in the memories of common folk and how they get transmitted and get modified according to the narrator.
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Book covers period from 13 th century to 23 rd century. From the time when Halley comet was discovered and to the time when humans send probes in space to discover distant parts of galaxy; although human life is endangered and about to perish from the face of earth.
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Story covers deep connection of siblings who get abandoned into the woods. Folktale of Hansel and Gratel forms the core concept of novella.
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There is discussion of different sorts of attractions and affections into which human souls can fall.
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There is a story of astronomer, person dying with disease, troubled artists and abandoned space probes.
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. Author leaves few things unsaid and unclarified to make reader imagine and infer. It get few neurons to spark up.
You will need free time and silent surroundings to soak into the story.
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Story takes effort to absorb and more of negative emotions are painted on pages which might distract reader.
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But if you want to read innovative writing with pressure on your imagination while reading it; you should pick this one.
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.I am certainty looking forward to reading her earlier books.
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.Thanks edelweiss plus and author for review copy.

[Stacia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the looping narratives of time, space, storytelling, & siblings. Both micro & macro in scale, this is a subtle, tightly-controlled tale of what it means to be human. A concise beauty of a book.

[Sydelle Keisler · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was such a battle to get through. About halfway through I was convinced I didn’t like it and that I wouldn’t grow to like it, but I felt like it was me against the book, and I was not going to let the book win! So I finished it! There were two sections that I found meaningful (section in the middle on AIDS and the second to last chapter) but my god the rest was so irritating. Every sentence felt forced; every philosophical question felt overwrought and pseudo-deep. I felt like the book was saying very simple things in very full-of-itself ways. A friend, whose literary taste I trust, recommended this book to me and truly loved it, so I’m sure there’s something I’m missing. Maybe if I had read this book at a different time it would’ve hit differently. But, my god, I can’t tell you how many times I literally had to stop and roll my eyes as I was reading!! Not for me!

[Fadwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so tender and queer and beautiful, it made my soul ache. Don’t ask me to explain what it is about, just trust me and read it.

[Nadine in California · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a fan of a very specific kind of experimental fiction - one that is historical in the sense that time curves around itself, allowing different time periods to flow around each other to tell a bigger story. In this case the story is about, among other things, the slipperiness of storytelling, the love of siblings, and the fear of desire. The characters/time periods appear here because their stories coincide with the appearance of Halley's comet. There's one time period that doesn't coincide but I wish did so we could have met a sibling pair from a Nazi-occupied country during the Holocaust.

[But_i_thought_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think I've ever read a book this meta.

(Review to follow)

[Ian Scuffling · Rating 4 out of 5]

For such a short novel, there is so much to love in Lindsey Drager's The Archive of Alternate Endings, and ultimately, its brevity is its biggest detriment. Well, it's title could also use some work. But what we have here is a web of stories linked by the stars--or rather by a comet, known to us as Halley's--across nearly a millennium and each mini-story features connections, echoes, repetitions of the tale of Hansel and Gretel, along with artifacts that span the ages and influence the arc of each character.

While each set of characters features repetitions or echoes of the story of the twins lost in the woods, each set of characters is vividly distinctive from the other, and Drager does a marvelous job of leaving "breadcrumbs" for the reader to find and create the connections across time. In particular, perhaps the most moving sections to me were the ones between the nurse and the illustrator in 1910 and the two men in 1986 at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Drager's story takes on themes of suppressed homosexuality, the bond between siblings, how stories change (or don't) and how the printing press fucked up oral traditions a lil' by foreclosing natural variation, how, as humans, we are subject to forces of nature (celestial, historical, etc.) outside our power or agency, and then also some weird stuff about the end of humanity but stories live on (and therefore so does our humanity).

If that seems like a lot to tackle in 137 pages, that's because it is, and the novel suffers fairly heavily from this. Because Drager doesn't give herself enough space to explore these themes, they often come across as sketches of the thematic premise for each set of characters. The stories are quite plainly told, which has some emotional weight, especially in the aforementioned two character arcs in 1910 and 1986, where the plain language underpins the devastating core of their narratives. Meanwhile, some of the stuff set in the future felt a little thin--the space probes disseminating Hansel and Gretel via binary code merely functions as an aesthetic piece that doesn't do much to add nuance to what's already happening in the other timelines in the novel other than to suggest our humanity will continue even when our species is dead and gone.

After finishing the novel, and upon reflecting on a lot of it, The Archive of Alternate Endings felt a little bit like reading the leftover bits and pieces in David Foster Wallace's The Pale King--almost as if the novel is unfinished, and we're just reading some of the notes left behind by the writer. But don't get me wrong here, reading those notes is incredible and incredibly enjoyable. We get a view into a wonderfully creative and intellectually stimulating mind--the disappointment isn't from what's in the notes, but there aren't more notes to be read. I really look forward to reading Drager's other work, and whatever she may do next--a very cool writer.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finding the words to describe the depth of emotion and intellect packed into Lindsey Drager's quick novel "The Archive of Alternate Endings" is harder than just telling you to pick up a copy ASAP and read it.

Interweaving the stories of people from ten vastly different eras, Drager connect Halley's Comet, Hansel and Gretel, Gutenberg, and more to think through what connects us - and disconnects us - as humans. This book is rife with the beauties of strong women, powerful gay men, and the connections that bring them together as they support one another and fight for each other's lives.

A severely underrated book from an indie press: don't sleep on "The Archive of Alternate Endings," it's just plainly so good.

[Bianca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Questo libro è un'esperienza. Una spirale ascendente verso l'eternità del tempo e discendente verso la profondità dell'animo umano. Un ciclo che si ripete ogni 75 anni ma che potrebbe non durare per sempre. Una storia impalpabile, sfuggente, un flusso veloce che si muove nel tempo, nello spazio, nelle possibilità contenute nei barattoli di biscotti e nelle scie lasciate dalle briciole di pane. Una foresta infinita, in cui ogni albero è una possibilità, un epilogo, un finale alternativo che è sempre lì sullo sfondo ma rimane inaccessibile.

Coppie di fratelli in vari periodi storici, stretti tuttavia dallo stesso tipo legame e dallo stesso affetto. Una sorella che protegge suo fratello, un fratello che stima sua sorella, ognuno che sa di poter contare sull'altro.

È una storia di storie, di punti di vista, del lato oscuro e nascosto delle fiabe, di relazioni che si intrecciano eppure rimangono sempre parallele. È una storia sul tempo, che tutti sanno scorrere inevitabilmente più veloce di quanto si vorrebbe, e di come rimanga austero e inarrestabile. È una storia che parla di morte e di quanto sia difficile, obbligatorio e quasi naturale accettarla.

Ci ho trovato la paura dell'inevitabile, la caduta dell'immagine del genitore-supereroe, la fragilità di ciò che si dà per scontato, l'insignificanza dell'uomo sulla Terra da un punto di vista esterno ad essa e il bisogno di accettazione da parte di noi stessi ("parla della paura di essere mangiati ma anche della paura che mangiare soddisfi delle voglia di cui eravamo solo vagamente consapevoli). Il tema della caducità dell'uomo è rappresentata attraverso l' "esempio" delle persone vittime dell'HIV durante gli anni Ottanta, uomini abbandonati da qualcuno e ritrovati dalle braccia di qualcun altro.

Come tecnica mi sembra molto sperimentale e per me ha funzionato molto bene. Il ritmo altalenante ha solo aumentato la mia voglia di ritornare a scene interrotte e riprese. Mi sono piaciuti tanto perfino i capitoli sulle sonde!

Non guarderò più i barattoli come prima, perché ci vedrò un mare di possibilità all'interno.

Nessuno dice: Ogni fiaba che sopravvive è reale, anche se non è vera.
Nessuno dice: C'era una volta.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so hard to describe in the best way. I finished reading it a while ago, but it hasn't really stopped swirling around in my head. It's a little slip of a book, but it's about so many things: relationships both romantic and familial, stories, the art of telling stories (and why that difference is significant and important), history, discovery, and how our lives connect to the largeness of the world in ways that will we will never ever fully know.
Drager's writing is precise and beautiful, and I just feel so lucky to have been able to read a book like this. If you are a person who thinks the world is big AND small and just really beautiful AND really complex, you should read this book.

A somewhat meaningful aside, I found out about this book on a twitter thread asking for recommendations of great reads by women who were still alive. This title came up in the thread, and I thought "wow, what a great title" and then I thought "wait, why is that name so familiar?" I went to college with and tutored writing alongside the author for a year or so, which is just kind of amazing to me. I bought the book immediately and devoured it in a few days. I can't wait to read more of her work.

[Vehka Kurjenmiekka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phew! This book was something else! I'm glad I didn't know too much about it, since getting engrossed with was such a powerful experience. It had only 154 pages, but within those pages the story was carefully crafted, beautifully told and very intricate, and I loved every part of it.

[MissFede · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not much to the story but beautiful writing.

[Rosita Pederzolli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finora il libro migliore letto quest'anno.
Devastante.

[Beth Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating: 4.75 stars

This was a stunning and experimental novella about storytelling, the things that are lost when stories are passed down, sibling relationships, and snapshots of queer life throughout history. The use of Halley's comet and the Hansel and Gretel story as framing devices really helped tie the various stories together. This book reminded me a lot of The Ghosts of Heaven, which I read in high school and adored. The prose was beautiful, and though there wasn't much of a "plot," I still believe there was a powerful story being told.

[alexa · Rating 5 out of 5]

such lovely beautiful amazing writing, i wish i could wrap myself up with it like a soft warm blanket

[Rosalyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most unique book I've ever read. You're reading and solving a puzzle at the same time. Brilliant.

[Cass · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say other than wow- picked this up for the cool title and interesting concept and didn’t even know it was queer!!! LOVED the web weaving between the different timelines maybe a new fav of mine

[Tracey Allen at Carpe Librum · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Archive of Alternate Endings by Lindsey Drager is quite unlike any book I've read before. The story of Hansel and Gretel is told at 75 year intervals between the years 1378 - 2365 to coincide with the visit of Halley's Comet. I had no idea how the author was going to achieve 14 different narratives, the juxtaposition of historical fiction and science fiction, and all in a non linear fashion without losing the reader's focus or attention. It sounded too ambitious but I was game.

At the time I chose to pick this up, I was reading The Brothers Grimm: 101 Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm and struggling to push through the style of writing. It was for this reason that the inclusion of the Grimm brothers in the 1835 timeline of The Archive of Alternate Endings was a welcome surprise.

"The task set before them is to solicit from the women the tales that have defined their country and culture, the tales that are going extinct. The women know the stories best, for they are the primary narrators. These are women for whom work means labor: tending garden, cooking dinner, raising children, cleaning house. Telling tales, the women inform Jacob and Wilhelm, helps to pass the time." Page 12

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm listen to the story of Hansel and Gretel, and one particular version is different to the one we all know. From this point, we follow the various iterations of the fairytale in the subsequent narratives.

"Hansel and Gretel. The story is first told by tongues now long gone. It echoes through the countryside, travels great distances and across the ages. Families install it into the brains of their children and those children grow to become adults. The story is mapped into the mind like a digital blueprint. The brain computes that the story is about strife, abandonment, the possibilities of leaving bits of yourself behind in order to find your way home. Home is used here figuratively, meaning that which is familiar and comfortable and safe." Page 67

In the 1910 timeline, the narrator is an illustrator of the story providing a neat connection, and here she reflects on the difference between being a writer and reading:

"She is grateful she is not a writer, for writing is a ghostly, haunted thing. It permits one to enter different temporal dimensions. It allows one to enter different human psyches. It requires one to manipulate the feelings of another until one elicits a particular response. To read is to consume, to put the book on the tongue and push it down the throat. She reads the story again and again, silently. She catches herself in the glass of the window and for a moment, she does not know the lips that mouth the words." Page 50

You might be wondering how the reader could possibly navigate and keep track of 14 time lines, and I marvelled at this while reading too. The feat is achieved with ingenious chapter headings and sub-headings, aided by short punchy chapters and vignettes and held together with solid storytelling to connect the timelines and keep the story straight.

"It is easy to forget, but stories need not always have a purpose. We are quick to say that folktales have a moral or a lesson or a creed. But most of the stories that have survived the ages are told for one purpose only, and that purpose is to say this: 'Being human is difficult. Here is some evidence.' " Page 94-95

I think the same can be said when considering the purpose behind The Archive of Alternate Endings. There are morals and lessons along the way and the book is full of cosmic correlations and themes of sibling connections, parenthood, queerness, grief, climate change, AIDs epidemic and the power of stories coalesce into a literary offering quite unlike my usual reading fare.

Somehow the author has pulled off quite a feat bringing more than 14 dates and narratives together and the following quote seems a fitting description of the reader's experience on the page:

"Time feels like it is pleating, so that before and after seem somehow simultaneously now." Page 84

This characterises my own reading experience and I was impressed by the author's ability to pleat time and not lose me in the folds of her many intersecting and overlapping narratives in the process. The only reason this book isn't getting the full 5 star treatment, is that several future dated chapters didn't hit the mark for me.

The Archive of Alternate Endings by Lindsey Drager was published in 2019, and a quick check tells me the author hasn't released any novels since then but I bet she's penning another stellar literary experiment and I'm totally here for it.

[Jessi · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most unique books I've ever read. A story about stories and who owns them, about the bond between siblings, about being connected but alone. The retellings of Hansel and Gretel were inventive and believable -- I had never really thought about the thematic depths of this fairy tale before.

Took me some time to find my way into it, as I think especially the first few chapters are a bit heavy-handed with the poetic phrasing and imagery. But as I kept reading things started clicking into place, and I found myself enjoying the thematic echoes reverberating through the chapters. I think I'll need to reread this one at some point to fully appreciate them.

"But most of the stories that have survived the ages are told for one purpose only, and that purpose is to say this: 'Being human is difficult. Here is some evidence.'"

"He watches her work and thinks: Our lives will never again be in such close proximity. It will always be a moving away from each other, from this point on. Which is to say, to love a sibling is to anchor your life to a series of sanctioned departures."

[Kobi · Rating 2 out of 5]

In a moment of ennui, I found this book on a good book list and the premise (far past and far future intertwined, Hailey's Comet, folktales) caught my attention.

Unfortunately, this book was ostentatious and said little that hasn't been said before, and in more pages than necessary (note that this book is only 154 pages long).

I feel like if you want to talk about something as played out as "The Power of Stories" you need to come correct. Overall, this felt like the worst parts of Inception and American Gods without the best parts of either. At its least offensive this was curious, with a line or two of intrigue; at its worst it felt like something I'd write for an intro creative writing class in an attempt to disguise cringe-y gimmicks as something profound (I'm looking at you, pages that were written entirely in binary except for one line at the end).

I'm not giving it one star because the middle portion that was explicitly about the AIDS crises was pretty strong. Too bad it was crowded by so much chatter. This one wasn't for me!

Here was my favorite line: "Which is to say, to love a sibling is to anchor your life to a series of sanctioned departures"

[Jeddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s been a long time since a book has affected me this much; it has left me breathless. The Archive of Alternate Endings is an intimate collection of interwoven narratives that winds through time and even space. It reinvents history—we pass by the Brothers Grimm, Johannes Gutenberg, Edmond Halley, and Ruth Coker Burks (the Cemetery Angel of the AIDS crisis)—and breathes life into so many who have been left voiceless. It’s about sibling-hood, forests, isolation, sexuality, family, life, curiosity, grief, hidden things, and most importantly stories. Lindsey Drager, through a masterful meshing of truth, folktale, and invention, emphasizes how stories shape us and are shaped by us, how we give them life, and how they, in turn, immortalize our existence. Somehow never saccharine, this is a love letter (and sometimes eulogy) to the powers of nature and humanity—however brutal they may be.

[Amber Kozawick]

Ok wow. This short novel was beautiful and challenging and completely unique. I had a few gut-punch moments and some moments that had me completely unsure of where my feelings stood in regards to it. I honestly don’t understand how to fit this into my normal ranking scale, so I haven’t ranked it.
I can tell you I’ll be thinking about this for a time to come, though.