Thistlefoot: I can’t wait to read it again

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

2023’s Thistlefoot, by GennaRose Nethercott, is one of my favorite reads of 2024. This literary fantasy draws from Jewish and Eastern European folktales, with a concretely modern setting, a gloss of mythic American West (hobos and tumbleweeds), and sentences that sing with poetry.

Isaac Yaga is a street performer and a con artist. He can impersonate almost anyone, and he is always on the run, either from the people whose pockets he’s picked, or from his own guilty memories, accompanied only by a small black cat named Hubcap. His sister Bellatine is a gifted woodworker who yearns to put down roots and stay in one place. Her work is meticulous and beautiful, but Bellatine fears the power of her hands, which sometimes do more than shape wood. She hasn’t seen her brother in years, since he ran away from home, but a strange bequest brings them together in Red Hook, New York, where they learn they have inherited Baba Yaga’s house.

…The house continued to move, shimmying from side to side as it squeezed itself out of the shipping container. Then, when fully free of its enclosure, it stood up. The house rose a full story taller, its chimney nearly grazing the warehouse ceiling. It loomed over the Yaga siblings, propped up on two long, yellow chicken legs.

“Nope, no way, I’m out.” Bellatine yanked her arm free of Isaac’s grip and started marching for the exit.

GennaRose Nethercott

We learn the story through the points of view of Isaac and Bellatine… and the house itself, who shares with us its personal history and the heart-breaking history of the small village in early-20^th-century Ukraine where Baba Yaga and her children lived. The house has an enemy, the Longshadow Man, who uses a distillation of fear and hatred to control the people around him. He is pursued by a folk-rock-band-turned-monster-slayers, who find Isaac. From there, the story is a race through the southeast, in a chicken-legged house, (the rest of this sentence contains a spoiler, so highlight it if you want to see it) with battling siblings and the puppets from the family puppet show, pursued by a creature who is the embodiment of a pogrom.

The book is often funny, more often witty, even more often said. It’s rock-solidly grounded and surreal, and the magic that fills the story is not systematic and comprehensible to everyone, because it is magic.

The story deals with family, with grief, loss and guilt, and, for all the lyrical writing, is unsentimental. Isaac lies and runs to escape his guilt; Bellatine fears the force in her hands, which give a kind of life—and both siblings are drawing not only on their own experiences, but hereditary loss and grief as well.

Nethercott takes her time to say what she wants to say, which can make the tale read as slow, even though it’s not. It’s also, as I said, sad, for all the charm and humor, so I’m aware that not everyone will like it as much as I do. For me, this was a perfect blend of wonderful characters, a clever story and exquisite prose. I can’t wait to read it again.