★★★★★ A six-part prose fugue

The Six Deaths of the Saint

Alix E Harrow

After cudgeling my brains all night (poor brains!), I think I have come up with a not totally inadequate way to describe this story. It's a prose fugue. Let me explain.

A fugue is an elaboration of a simple musical idea called a canon. A canon is a musical theme that can be combined with itself. The common rounds "Row, row, row your boat" and "Frère Jacques" are examples of simple canons: one person starts singing, then after a line a second signer joins in, and so on. The tune is structured so that these out-of-phase singers harmonize. Tunes can be combined with variations such as speeding up, increasing or decreasing the pitch, etc. It is difficult to compose a canon that works. (The master, of course, was Johann Sebastian Bach.) A fugue is a canon set free -- a canon in which the composer allows themselves the artistic freedom to break the strict structure of the canon. For a brief, lovely example, look up Bach's Little Fugue in G minor -- notice how you keep hearing the same simple tune over and over? (I am not any kind of musician, so I don't pretend that this description is anywhere close to 100% technically accurate.)

The Six Deaths of the Saint has a plot. It is actually a fairly simple plot -- I think I could lay it out in three sentences and not leave out anything important. Of course, I am not going to do that. Instead, I will give you hints: elements of the plot reminded me of Goldman's The Princess Bride and also Heinlein's All You Zombies. Also, like all the stories of Into Shadows, it involves persistence beyond death.

Yes, I know that was obscure. It's meant to be. But it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that the simple story is repeated with variations that harmonize. It is a six-part prose fugue. And it is definitely in a minor key.

And it works, beautifully, powerfully. I had never heard of Alix E. Harrow before this, but I have now and will be looking for more.

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