Nancy Springer’s I Am Mordred: A Tale from Camelot

UnknownI remember reading The Wicked Day by Mary Stewart in high school. It was the first time I had encountered a vivid, realistic “anti-hero.” In her portrayal of Mordred, the son fated to be the downfall of his father, the great King Arthur, Stewart revealed clearly that people and events can be terribly misunderstood, and that sometimes a person with a good heart can wear the “black hat.” Reading that book changed the way I looked at the world.

Hence, it was with a great deal of anticipation that I begged my editor for the chance to review Nancy Springer’s I am Mordred, originally published in 1998, and being released in paperback by Firebird. Springer is one of my longtime favorite authors, especially for her Book of Isle series. I was eager to read her version of the story of Mordred, the man whom fate had cursed.

As I had expected, the book is beautifully written. Springer has a gift for lovely imagery and apt characterization. However, the story she tells is one of the darkest and bleakest that I have ever read. This Mordred is crossed, and brutally crossed, at almost every turn. He has a few bright moments, but they turn to ashes later on. In the end, he simply accepts his fate as a father-slayer, and asks only that his soul be magically taken from him so that at least he can be evil without feeling bad about it.

In her dedication, Springer says that this book is “for oddlings everywhere.” I would recommend that oddlings and others read instead The Wicked Day for an anti-hero who struggles to the end to find hope and make good choices in the face of terrible circumstances. Additionally, the Bordertown series abounds with stories of people who are “odd,” society’s rejects, who find friends, lives worth living, and ways to overcome bad “fate.”

I do recommend Nancy Springer’s other writing, especially the above-mentioned Book of Isle series (the five titles in the series are The White Hart, The Silver Sun, The Sable Moon, The Black Beast, and The Golden Swan). This series is out of print, but as we so often urge here at The Green Man Review, try your local library, used book stores, or online used book dealers.

(Philomel Books, 1998)

Grey Walker

Grey Walker is a Narrative American (with thanks to Ursula K. Le Guin for coining that term). Although she makes money as a librarian, she makes her life as a reader and writer of stories and reviews of stories. She has a growing interest in the interstitial arts. The album she listens to most often is Morning Walk by Metamora. The book she re-reads most often (and she never owns a book unless she intends to read it more than once) is The Smith of Wootton Major by J.R.R. Tolkien.

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