My Lady of the Hearth - Storm Constantine

 My Lady of the Hearth - Storm Constantine

Storm Constantine was an important figure in fantasy fiction. Her works were significant in exploring gender fluidity. Following her death in January, a number of her fans wrote on social media about the impact of her writing on their development. Her fantasy novels were, and are, a safe place for those who are questioning their own sexuality. Her tastes in music, her interests in magic and tarot, and the details of her fantasy writing were always a step or two away from my areas of interest. When I picked up one of her books, it was only to put it down again after a brief sample. Nonetheless, I was aware of her significance as a writer and publisher ,and, as such, I was not surprised to see how many writers expressed their sorrow. She was 64 years old.

My Lady of the Hearth was first published in Ellen Datlow’s Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers in 1998. Datlow’s anthologies of the 1990s included a focus on the adaptation of fairy tale and mythology, and on the exploration of sexuality. Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers was the last of her sequence of anthologies of science fiction, horror and fantasy tales of alternative sexuality. More recently, Paula Guran included My Lady of the Hearth in her anthology Obsession: Tales of Irresistible Desire.

By now, the reader has received fair warning. Constantine’s short story deals with an unusual expression of sexuality. It is a peculiarly disturbing story, both for the distance from a perceived norm of sexual behaviour, and for the ways in which the peculiarities of the story are also in close proximity to familiar behaviours. I have no wish to be more explicit. It would be something of a disservice to Constantine’s story. Narrated simply, the impact of her story is deadened. This is definitely a story in which one needs to trust the writer as she leads the reader into troubling, even disturbing, territory.

Storm Constantine’s interest in mythology was well-known, and the setting of her story shows that fascination. It doesn’t really matter if the reader is familiar with the setting, though. Constantine’s story works just as well without prior background knowledge. The mythological interest that she uses to give the necessary shapes to her narrative are not the point of her story. The emotional landscape, the interplay of desire with other aspects of life, with honesty and commitment and social responsibility, for example; these are the real energies at play in her tale. By the end, you may well be thinking about the mistakes the central character made; and that process is quite instructive.