Review of “In the House of Gingerbread” (1987)
Gene Wolfe (writer).
Read in 2025.
Read in the collection Endangered Species (1989).
This criminal drama takes place somewhere in the territory of the Todorovian fantastic, but I don’t think that’s the point. It gets its power from the same sources as Blue Velvet (1986): An implausibly dark underbelly at an unmeasurable separation from wholesomeness.