What-the-Dickens

What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy, by Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire is a fascinatingly creative author who takes well-known fairy tales and reinvents them with a new perspective. The author of Wicked, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Mirror Mirror and many others, Maguire surely has a first-class talent. What-the-Dickens, however, though creative, may not compare as highly to his previous works. Maguire boldly shines when he gives an original twist to those stories we grew up with, but when creating an entirely knew story about the Tooth Fairy, he only twinkles softly.

During a strong hurricane, it seems as if the world is ending. Dinah is barricaded in her house with her older brother Zeke and younger, almost two-year old sister Rebecca Ruth. Their parents have gone missing after leaving to find medical help for the mother, so it is lucky that their second-cousin Gage was there to look after them when the rest of the area had been evacuated due to the storm and subsequent landslides and loss of power. In order to remain brave in a crisis, Gage tells the children a story about skibbereen, fairy-like creatures we believe to be the Tooth Fairy. These creatures live in separate local colonies, which explains how all of the teeth can be collected and paid for in a single night. These creatures are loyal to their colony and competing colonies are in a state of war, conducting raids for resources. They live by the motto “Hidden and Forbidden:” they must hide from sight and if caught are forbidden to tell anything about their colony, especially its location. When the orphan skibbereen, What-the-Dickens, is born in a tin can, the story follows his quest to learn who (and what) he is and where (if anywhere) he belongs. After many different attempts to belong, either with the cat McCavity, the mother grisset or an old woman who thinks him to be the Angel of Death, he finds another skibbereen named Pepper that illegally takes him back to her colony located in a tree stump in the center of a highway clover. Here, What-the-Dickens is able to learn what he is and that there are others like him, but he quickly finds that is it a complicated and untrusting world. Thought to be a spy, What-the-Dickens must prove that he is not in order to try and win himself a home.

The thing about trying to create a new fairy tale is that a whole cultural background must be created from scratch. And even harder is trying to portray this enter society of tooth fairies in a way that is still fascinating and readable. By using the idea of an orphan trying to figure out who and what he is, lots of questions are asked, allowing the readers to better understand the circumstances of the novel. Yet, there is 200-pages worth of build up that must be done before the last 100 pages of plot can take place. Personally, I found the constantly intertwining story of those in the hurricane far more fascinating than that of the skibbereen’s history and social dynamics. However, once a strong foundation had finally been made for What-the-Dickens, the plot quickly picked up and readers will be happy to know that little things from those first 200 pages play a larger part near the end and it wasn’t all for nothing. Once you continue through to the end, you get some action and resolution in the land of skibbereen. But when readers return to those human characters in the hurricane, done with the completed story of What-the-Dickens and the warring, tooth-collecting skibbereen, a second and I think necessary ending seemed to be missing. The present ending appears to be incomplete and even contradictory. Some might consider it to be bittersweet, while I consider it not enough.

For those who have the will to finish the novel, you will be better off than those who quit before anything substantial can be gained. If you choose to start this, please finish it, or you will not understand it or appreciate the creativity and originality of the work or of the author. While this book was only okay, I would still recommend Gregory Maguire as a talented writer that should be read. His previous works make you wish there were more pages to read, but What-the-Dickens made you wish it were Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister instead.

“All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality -- the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.”
- Arthur Christopher Benson