Here’s Christopher Benfey on Cunningham’s new book of fairy tales reimagined:

Not all ugly ducklings turn out to be swans. Not all frogs are enchanted ­princes. And perhaps it’s best that way, as Cunningham notes in “Dis. Enchant,” his humane and rueful prologue: “If certain manifestations of perfection can be disgraced, or disfigured, or sent to walk the earth in iron shoes, the rest of us will find ourselves living in a less arduous world; a world of more reasonable expectations; a world in which the appellations ‘beauty’ and ‘potency’ can be conferred upon a larger cohort of women and men.” Who needs three wishes anyway? “Most of us can be counted on to manage our own ­undoings.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/books/review/a-wild-swan-by-michael-cunningham.html