Narrative is a great simplifier, tidying up messy life situations into neat cause-and-effect tales where characters resolve their dilemmas with action. Whatever her subject, Walton’s fiercest weapon is her delicious ambiguity. But maybe the protagonist is just kidding herself?
Her 2011 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning “Among Others” is a fictionalized memoir about a young Welsh girl whose relationship with her paranoid schizophrenic mother, bullying at a posh English boarding school and discovery of the wider world through science fiction fandom are possibly a story about the faerie realm and a family whose struggles are the visible portion of a vast and ancient struggle in the supernatural realm.
Just as often, Walton’s books defy summarization. Sometimes a Jo Walton book can be summed up with a high-concept line: “What if all of Anthony Trollope’s protagonists were dragons?” (“Tooth and Claw,” 2003) or “What if Athene and Apollo gathered everyone in history who ever wished to live in Plato’s Republic together on an island?” (“The Just City,” 2015).
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