A Fistful of Sky by Nina Kiriki Hoffman is a richly textured novel unlike anything else I've ever read. The story is centered around Gypsum LaZelle, a young woman who stands in a strange state of isolation at the beginning of the novel. She is quite ordinary, a little too plump, rather shy, and unsure of what she wants to do with her life. Gyp is nothing short of an ugly duckling in her beautiful family, and she is the only child not to inherit the gift of spell casting. While her mother and siblings are able to shape the world to their will with their wish power, she alone remains awkward and powerless in their midst. She relies a great deal on "mental whitewash" and forced positive thinking to make the world into a something she can live with. All this changes, however, when she comes into her own power, a power darker and stranger than anything she dreamed could live within her...
This novel is a strange and beautiful take on the usual coming of age story. I can't help but empathize with Gyp as she is forced to look into the depths of her soul and face the unplumbed depths of her own potential, a thrilling and frightening prospect that each and every one of us has faced or will face at one point or another. I find particularly intriguing the relationship between Gypsum and the mysterious "Altria", whom I'm sure Jung would identify immediately as Gypsum's shadow, the unconscious dark side to her cheerfully harmless ego. Over the course of her story, Gypsum is forced to reevaluate who she is and her place in the world, and comes to understand that it is possible to grasp her own personal power and to love and be loved unconditionally (both in a romantic and platonic sense of the word).
This is a novel that has grown on me a little more with each reading. The style is unusual, the imagery outside the norm, and the characters, particularly Gypsum, are simply too human not to love.
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