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".[6]

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
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