In many ways, Heather O’Neill’s The Capital of Dreams (HarperCollins) is a fairy tale: once upon a time in a country far away, a wicked mother sent her daughter into the woods... And, as in any fairy tale, The Capital of Dreams uses familiar genre elements as vehicles for larger, more difficult subjects. When enemy forces take over the capital of Elysia, young Sofia and her emotionally distant mother, Clara (“the Simone de Beauvoir of Elysia”), unexpectedly bond while struggling to salvage their country’s cultural heritage. Then a notice arrives ordering the evacuation of the children of the capital, and Sofia’s mother sees an opportunity to smuggle out her latest book. But things don’t go as planned, and from here Sofia’s story unfolds in parallel storylines; the past is revealed in flashbacks, woven into the main narrative of Sofia’s journey through occupied Elysia, as she wanders the woods with her animal companion, a talking goose, on her quest to find the Black Market. O’Neill is a master at maintaining tension, in part due to her use of a straightforward, irreverent voice to describe horrible events. The effect is unsettling and often haunting, like a song about heartbreak in a major chord. But it is a self-conscious narrative and O’Neill isn’t coy about unpacking her own fable: “All the things they teach young girls about being good people turn them into nervous wrecks.” This novel is as much an homage to fairy tales as a deconstruction of them. As the story progresses, the fantasy evaporates so seamlessly it is difficult to see the end coming. What’s surprising is the redemption offered after the dream has disappeared. —Cornelia Mars

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