Faery Tale: One Woman's Search for Enchantment in a Modern World

by Signe Pike

Overview

One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2010

A skeptic's search for magic, one faery at a time.

In search of something to believe in again, Signe Pike left behind a career in Manhattan to undertake a magical journey-literally. In a sweeping tour through England, Ireland, Scotland, and beyond, she takes readers to dark glens and abandoned forests, ancient sacred sites, and local pubs, seeking those who might still believe in the mysterious beings we've relegated to the dusty corners of our childhood imaginations: faeries. But as Signe attempts to connect with the spirit world, she'll come to view herself and the world around her in a profoundly new way.

Engaging and full of heart, Faery Tale is more than a memoir-it's the story of rekindling that spark of belief that makes even the most skeptical among us feel like a kid again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399537004
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/01/2011
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	492,535
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Signe Pike is an editor and writer living in Charleston, South Carolina.

Read an Excerpt

I wake up every morning with a sense of purpose: I am a tastemaker. As a book editor in New York City, I think about it constantly: What do people want to read? What will they want to read in one year? What about two? Mostly I acquire books that entertain women, that engulf them. When I think about the reader, I think about you. I buy books that I hope will make you smile, make you believe in the magic of love at first sight—I buy books that I hope will heal your heartbreak. I read all the time, big, thick manuscripts. It’s part of the job. Each night I take home chunks of pages in an extra shoulder bag. I read on the treadmill. I read while I’m eating my take-out dinner. I read before bed, propped up with a pillow, my glasses slipping down toward the tip of my nose. I’m beginning to wonder if carrying all the paper is the reason my right shoulder feels like it’s filled with marbles.

In the morning I get up and I flip on the radio. NPR and a cup of coffee. I’m always running late—I can never figure out what to wear.

I’m almost twenty-eight years old and I’m always trying to look older. I hate blazers and button-up shirts. I hate walking the streets of New York in high heels; the men gawk and the concrete wears them down until the metal pokes out the bottom. I lock the door and say goodbye to the cat, hoping for her that today, there will be pigeons.

I read on the subway, pressed up against a big man whose breath smells like rotten eggs and stale coffee. Next to me is a fat, middle-aged stockbroker, staring over the top of his Wall Street Journal at the gap between the taught fabric of a blond woman’s skirt. He has a slim gold wedding band on, and I wonder if the woman who gave it to him believed in love at first sight.

The train shoots underground and the faces around me look ashen in the yellow lights. I close my eyes for a moment, and everything, the lights, the people, the rapidly receding subway walls, slips away and I am rushing out into the bright sunshine. I walk up a long dune that leads to the beach, where I can hear the sound of the ocean. It sounds like a sigh. I open my eyes to see people looking back.

Has she fallen asleep?

I focus again on the pages in front of me. I tell myself, All I want is to heal some heartbreak. Upstairs in the glass-walled building, I flick on the desk lamp in my third-floor interior office. Without windows, the fluorescent lights give me a raucous headache, and I’m not usually a headache kind of girl. Glancing at my calendar, my eyes find the familiar photo pinned near the top of my bulletin board.

Have you ever looked at a photo so much that you can’t even truly see it anymore? I examine it again, trying to break it down into pieces. I see a man who looks far older than his sixty years, walking down a winding set of stone stairs. At his feet, a small brown-and-white dog is captured mid-movement, and he has turned to face the camera above him, his eyes gazing back at mine. The expression he wears is one of faux surprise: he hardly ever plays it straight for the camera. I know this, because neither do I. In a moment he’ll call out, Hey, you coming?

I see a flash of fabric breeze past my office door.

“Good morning, Signe,” my boss says.

“Good morning to you,” I say brightly. I flick on my computer and glance at the persistent blinking light on my phone.

You have five new messages.

I reach for the phone with one hand and my coffee with the other. Lately, I think, my face hurts from smiling.

“Hi, this is Signe Pike, returning a call . . .”

I am going to heal your heartbreak, because I have no idea how to heal my own.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Faery Tale"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Signe Pike.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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What People are Saying About This

Jillian Lauren

"It's hard to decide what's more enchanting, Signe Pike's writing or the magical world she uncovers. This is a book for hopeful skeptics and believers alike. Proceed with caution, because Faery Tale may cast a spell that transforms the way you see the world forever."

From the Publisher

"Finding happiness is an adventure that everyone should take, and Faery Tale inspires you to go on that journey."
- Lucy Danziger, Editor-in-Chief of SELF Magazine and author of New York Times bestseller of The Nine Rooms of Happiness

Marianne Williamson

Pike's enchanting journey into the land of the faeries is more than a memoir; it's an earnest search for what is real in a world that is filled with illusion, and what is true in a world that is filled with falsehood. It makes you smile, and it makes you think....

Editorial Reviews

"Pike's enchanting journey into the land of the faeries is more than a memoir; it's an earnest search for what is real in a world that is filled with illusion, and what is true in a world that is filled with falsehood. It makes you smile, and it makes you think...." — Marianne Williamson

"Faery Tale is enchanting."
- A. J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically — A. J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Livin

"Pike's wit, wisdom, and wide-eyed view of the world will help you to develop your own sense of traveler's whimsy." — Women's Adventure Magazine

"Faery Tale has given people so much-permission to explore, to question, and most of all to believe-not just in faeries, but in themselves, in each other, and in the rest of the world, both seen and unseen. We absolutely love this book."

— Brian and Wendy Froud, authors of The Heart of the Faerie Oracle and ot

"A sparkling memoir of make-believe and real life. ... [Pike's] discoveries are heartwarming and spellbinding. With a distinctive voice and elegant prose, Faery Tale captures the hopefulness of childhood and the magic of believing." — Harper's Bazaar

"Pike writes of her various encounters with faery-believers and faery lands... in a winning voice that roams freely from melancholy to mirth, incredulity to bright surprise." — Kirkus Reviews

"Pike went looking for enchantment; well she found it, and she left its light and gracious footprints across every page of this delightful book." — Jeanine Cummins, bestselling author of A Rip in Heaven and The Outs

"Finding happiness is an adventure that everyone should take, and Faery Tale inspires you to go on that journey."
- Lucy Danziger, Editor-in-Chief of SELF Magazine and author of New York Times bestseller of The Nine Rooms of Happiness

"It's hard to decide what's more enchanting, Signe Pike's writing or the magical world she uncovers. This is a book for hopeful skeptics and believers alike. Proceed with caution, because Faery Tale may cast a spell that transforms the way you see the world forever." — Jillian Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of Some Girls: My

From the Publisher

"Pike's enchanting journey into the land of the faeries is more than a memoir; it's an earnest search for what is real in a world that is filled with illusion, and what is true in a world that is filled with falsehood. It makes you smile, and it makes you think...."

Marianne Williamson

"Faery Tale is enchanting."
- A. J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically

A. J. Jacobs

"Pike's wit, wisdom, and wide-eyed view of the world will help you to develop your own sense of traveler's whimsy."

Women's Adventure Magazine

"Faery Tale has given people so much-permission to explore, to question, and most of all to believe-not just in faeries, but in themselves, in each other, and in the rest of the world, both seen and unseen. We absolutely love this book."

Brian and Wendy Froud

"A sparkling memoir of make-believe and real life. ... [Pike's] discoveries are heartwarming and spellbinding. With a distinctive voice and elegant prose, Faery Tale captures the hopefulness of childhood and the magic of believing."

Harper's Bazaar

"Pike went looking for enchantment; well she found it, and she left its light and gracious footprints across every page of this delightful book."

Jeanine Cummins

A search for faeries—and magic in general—allows former book editor Pike to reclaim a happier, more engaged life.

While working for two different publishers in New York City, a fog of disgruntlement had settled over the author. She was weary of the hustle and bustle, as well as reading piles of manuscripts, but there was also a greater malaise involved. The whole world seemed to be going to hell in a hand basket, and somewhere along the line she had lost her sense of wonder and the joy of surprise. She hungered for a little magic and a belief in something to restore the pleasurable ache of innocence and reinvigorate her daily life. So, Pike decided to go looking for faeries. One of the most appealing aspects of her book is that she does it all with ringing earnestness—even when she's a witty smart-aleck—and without a hint of frou-frou spirituality. "I wanted to travel the world, find the people who are still awake in that old dreamtime, hear their stories," she writes. "I was going to find the goddamned fairies." As the author discovered, there are plenty of them out there, and numerous people for whom faeries are a fact of life to be reckoned with. Through these people, Pike re-engaged with the world in a way that was more typical of her youth. Her deceased father—a complicated, pungent soul who wends his way through the story—had been an energetic guide to the mystery and myth of the outdoors, and he effectively conveyed that to the author, despite her being a fearful kid. Pike writes of her various encounters with faery-believers and faery lands, fromNew York to MexicotoIrelandtoScotland, in a winning voice that roams freely from melancholy to mirth, incredulity to bright surprise.

"In chasing the beliefs I had as a child, I'd somehow managed to grow up"—into a person easily as captivating as her quarry.

Kirkus Reviews