Weetzie Bat is a novel by Francesca Lia Block which was published in 1989. It is a Young Adult novel that is often described using the term “urban fairytale.” Although a genie that grants wishes is an important event in the story, the fairytale characterization is not limited merely to that aspect. Overall, the story is set in Los Angeles and is both immediately recognizable and familiar yet also strange and alien. Names also introduce a slightly surreal touch to a setting that otherwise touches upon myriad real-life unresolved social issues of the period. The title character interacts with people called My Secret Agent Lover Man, Go-Go Girl, and Witch Baby.
The elemental significance of such offbeat names is integral to a story that is not constructed upon the mechanics of the plot. At its heart, the book is a story of a disaffected punk rock pixie teenager on an episodic course of self-discovery amongst other non-conforming independent souls in 1980s Southern California as she aims for the goal of finally finding a happy family situation for herself. Very quickly, Weetzie’s story becomes synonymous with outsiders struggling to make their way surrounded by a world that would rather they didn’t. For instance, Weetzie’s best friend, Dirk, is dealing with the struggles of being a homosexual at the height of the AIDS epidemic which created a demeaning backlash against the gay subculture. An older outsider, Grandma Fifi, gives Weetzie a lamp housing a genie granting three wishes. She uses those three opportunities to wish for romantic partners for herself and for Dirk and a house that will allow them to live together as they pursue the ever-elusive but ever-present fairy tale trope of the happily-ever-after ending. After a series of ups and downs in which the unexpected comes to be expected, the story closes on that house which Weetzie and Dirk share with the results of those wishes along with two children. It is a happy ending for all concerned, but it is distinctly not the portrait of the perfect nuclear family which was still considered the norm at the time. This is the real fairy tale aspect of the novel though it has since lost some of its sting. Mixed, blended, atypical family units such as those to which Weetzie belongs are no longer viewed as such radical alternatives to the status quo. They have moved fully into the mainstream.
This makes the reading of the novel in the present day almost a completely different experience from reading it at the time of its release. Sociological shifts in the real world have served to make the alt-fairy tale elements of the story such as one of the two children being the offspring of My Secret-Agent Lover Man and a woman other than Weetzie who is named Lily but comes to be called Witch Baby seem more like a prediction of the future than a commentary on the failures of the past. Weetzie’s obsession with having a baby without regard to being married still made her somewhat of a subversive character when first published and yet she still manages to seem revolutionary within the modern-day zeitgeist by being a young woman whose primary goal in life is to have a baby.
Despite its cast of offbeat characters navigating the fringes of mainstream society, Weetzie Bat is remarkably lacking in the signature mode of millennial fiction. Almost shockingly short of intended irony, it nevertheless manages to feel contemporary because it can be read as ironic due to how changes in the social fabric have come to resemble the reality of the novel even more than the reality of the novel originally reflected the America in which it is set.
