Her Furry Face

"Her Furry Face" is a 1983 science fiction short story by American writer Leigh Kennedy. It was first published in Asimov's Science Fiction.

Synopsis

Douglas is a primatologist who becomes infatuated with his student Annie, an orangutang whose language skills are so developed that she is able to read and write — and to not only understand, but reject, his romantic overtures.

Reception

"Her Furry Face" was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story of 1983.[1]

Publishers Weekly, reviewing Kennedy's collection Faces, noted that the story exemplifies Kennedy's "gift for the comic grotesque".[2] The 1988 Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review Annual, also reviewing Faces, called the story "bizarre" and "beautifully done" (while misidentifying Annie as a chimpanzee).[3] Gwyneth Jones considered it to be a "maybe more disturbing version of" Connie Willis's "All My Darling Daughters", observing that it "equat(es) woman and animal" and "damn(s) the insensitive, self-obsessed human male".[4] Michael Swanwick called it "excellent and disturbing".[5]

Shawna McCarthy, who was editor of Asimov's at the time "Her Furry Face" was published, reported that the story caused "hundreds of complaints and many subscription cancellations", and noted that it served as a "glaring red line of demarcation" between George Scithers' tenure as editor, and her own.[6]

Pat Murphy has stated that the story "lacks many of the overt trappings of science fiction", but emphasizes that she considers it "excellent".[7]

References
  1. 1983 Nebula Awards, at Science Fiction Writers of America; retrieved November 17, 2018
  2. Faces, reviewed at Publishers Weekly; published January 1, 1986; retrieved November 17, 2018
  3. Kennedy, Leigh: Faces, reviewed by Adrian de Wit, in Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review Annual, edited by Robert A. Collins and Robert Latham; published 1988 by Greenwood Publishing Group
  4. Deconstructing the Starships: Science, Fiction and Reality, by Gwyneth Jones; published April 1, 1999, by Oxford University Press
  5. A User's Guide to the Postmoderns, by Michael Swanwick, chapter 21 of Speculations on Speculation: Theories of Science Fiction, edited by James E. Gunn and Matthew Candelaria; published 2005 by Scarecrow Press
  6. Science Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science-fiction Magazines from 1981 to 1990, by Mike Ashley; published 2016 by Oxford University Press
  7. The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, chapter 7: "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever"; by Justine Larbalestier; p 228; published 2002 by Wesleyan University Press
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