Brett Moore's unique Tales Of Brother Goose

I bet Mother Goose is turning in her grave. Brett Nicholas Moore, who is a quirky and original writer has written a sophisticated and humorous book called “Tales of Brother Goose,” a clever modern day satire on Mother Goose’s late seventeenth century stories and rhymes.

Brett is the Prince of the denouements. His story’s ultimate twists are superb. He’s such a good short story teller that I paradoxically never wanted them to end, but also couldn’t wait for them to finish so that I could discover his unpredictable endings.

I loved his post climax in ‘Puss in boots’. Most of the old fairy tales have an evil protagonist and the one dimensional violence is dealt in a simplistic manner. Some of the action in Brett's version is explicitly lurid to suit today’s reader’s jaded palette for gruesome deaths. I hope I’m not giving away too much when this story has a postscript happy ending, a theme reminiscent of the old tales when the good character(s) wins.

All Brett Nicholas Moore’s stories are top-notch, but I preferred the ones with human characters to the animal ones. It’s hard to decide which tale I liked best in the book, but one of my favourites has got to be Cinderella. It’s a salacious hoot! (Like in all his stories), just when I was led into a false sense of security, Brett shocked me into laughing out loud with idiosyncratic nuggets of displaced 21st century life. He really knows how to startle the reader, especially when he uses modernistic slang and lingo, incongruous in his faithfully parodied old fairy tales.

Brett is an incredibly clever and inventive writer, proved by his hilarious and individualistic “Tragedy of Errors.” This Old Worlde spoof about the political backstabbing in the court of a king and queen is so unique, it’s worth buying “Tales Of Brother Goose” for alone. Buy it, but not for the kids.

Copyright: Frances Lynn, 2007