I'd been interested in the story of the Cottingley Fairies several years before this book was published so buying it was a bit of a no-brainer. The book is dark (as is the film based on it), but I was okay with that. I wish Steve Szilagyi had written more books because I liked his style of writing, but he seems to have only written this book. ( )

Does this count as a Once Upon a Time read? There are hints of other-worldiness, with ‘evidence’ of fairies when policeman Walsmear brings photographer Charles Castle photographs of fairies. Castle becomes completely convinced that those smears around the photographs are indeed fairies and heads to the garden to photograph the fairies for himself. Arthur Conan Doyle makes an appearance.

And based on that alone, it sounds like a fantastic read, doesn’t it? I was all ooh, Doyle and fairies!

But bah. It wasn’t. It started out fine enough but once Castle heads to the little village of Burkinwell to find the fairies, things just get too bizarre. Not in the otherworld-ly sense, which would have made for at least an interesting sort of bizarre. But in the human sense, where Castle meets the vicar’s wife and falls in with some gypsies and just drinks far too much. I’m kind of surprised I stuck with it, but I guess since the book opens with Castle telling his tale from prison, I wanted to find out what he was incarcerated for. So Steve Szilagui got me there. And I wasn’t the only one, as Photographing Fairies was shortlisted for the 1993 World Fantasy Awards and was even turned into a film starring Ben Kingsley. ( )

Charles Castle is an aimless young American who purportedly went to London to establish himself as a photographer. He is surprised that he feels a listlessness with the life he leads, that of the wedding / birthday / country club reunion photographer, which is hardly the artistically rich existence that he imagined for himself. Charles is looking for any excuse to shake him out of the doldrums, so when Constable Walsmear shows up at his studio with photos of the Templeton Girls playing with fairies in their garden, Charles is intrigued, despite his initial skepticism. Charles convinces Walsmear that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the best-known spiritualist of the time, would give them the necessary credibility and financial support to convince the world that fairies do exist. Contrary to Charles’ expectations, though, Sir Arthur wants nothing to do with the Templeton Girls’ fairies; Sir Arthur himself intends to alert the masses to fairies’ existence with his own fairy photographs (which are, relatively speaking, laughably fake). at the behest of Sir Arthur (and at the promise of monetary compensation), Charles travels to Burkinwell to buy the rights to the Templetons’ photos. Charles, though, has plans of his own: after buying the rights to the photos, he means to take new pictures of the fairies and enjoy the subsequent wealth and fame the photos will bring. Naturally, Burkinwell is not the quiet little vale that it seems. Charles’ presence upsets Burkinwell’s precarious balance and reveals secrets and resentments long-hidden or ignored, resulting in tragedy for all of them, most especially for Charles.

Photographing Fairies begins the night before Charles’ execution (so I don’t feel too bad for revealing it here); the rest of the novel recounts how he wound up in that unfortunate position. There’s not much revealed about Charles’ past before he moved to London, save for some vague reminiscing about past girlfriends in Boston. His tone throughout the novel is one of rational detachment, and because the novel is told from his point of view, there are times when the characters seem one-note and flat; even when Charles is led to all sorts of trouble with drunken, shifty gypsies and half-baked accusations by the police, he expresses nothing but a slightly impassive incredulity. For the most part, though, it was a very effective choice as it highlights both Charles’ skepticism and, when he finds that he is in over his head, a quiet hopelessness.

The central theme in the novel is that of belief. Prior to his involvement with the fairy photographs, Charles’ days had been characterized by a marked sameness. Through Charles’ plight, Mr. Szilagyi explores the intellectual / modern man’s need to believe in something bigger than himself, which in itself is a statement about the comfortable but colorless lives that some of us find ourselves leading from time to time. On the opposite spectrum, Charles becomes so consumed by his fixation on the fairies that it leads to his own execution, but even such a cataclysmic turn of events does not evoke much emotion from him. Charles, however, is vague until the end, and does not express outright regret for the unexpected turn of events. But perhaps that is the greatest lesson in this quietly captivating novel: life is what you make of it, and sometimes having faith can be as crippling as it can be life-affirming.

Photographing Fairies was clearly influenced by that most famous of fairy hoaxes (not like there have been very many of those), that of The Cottingley Fairies, originated by two little girls in England. In the early 19th century, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle actually was involved in that hoax, i.e., he was duped, even going so far as to publicly proclaiming his support for the girls. Mr. szilagyi takes this fanciful premise – that fairies exist – and runs with it, creating a genre-transcending and fascinating novel that speaks about life’s inherent loneliness and the destruction of innocence. ( )