Gregory Maguire has brought the land of Oz to us in ways we could never have imagined a century ago. We’ve gotten the story behind the Wicked Witch of the West (as both an adult and a child), her sister (the Wicked Witch of the East, remember), her son, her granddaughter, even the Cowardly Lion. But now it’s time for the story behind Glinda the Good Witch, formerly known as Galinda. She wasn’t always the pampered socialite that we meet in Wicked. There was a time when she was just a lonely little girl who wanted something more. Go back to Galinda’s roots in Gregory Maguire’s Galinda: A Charmed Childhood, out this September.
[Note: While I am reviewing this novel independently and honestly, it should be noted that it has been provided to me by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, for the purpose of this review. Warning: My review of Galinda: A Charmed Childhood contains some spoilers!]
A very different start from the one we’d assumed
When we are first introduced to Galinda in Wicked, she seems to be a confident, self-centered, empty-headed trust-fund brat. There’s no real depth to her. As the series continues, Maguire hints that there’s more to Glinda than she lets on, but his writing style makes it hard to be sure if she’s coyly hiding her intelligence or just stupid. In Galinda, we see that it’s a little of both.
Galinda is the youngest of four and her parents’ only daughter. Her mother came from the upper crust; her father, not so much. At first, the family happily lives in the lap of luxury her mother’s family name provides them. But then tragedy strikes. First in the form of an earthquake, then a volcanic eruption that only targets their home. They lose everything (and never bothered with insurance!), so the family is forced into a dilapidated old mill to start over.
Luckily for Galinda, she’s very young when all this tragedy strikes. She doesn’t remember the opulence of Chrysanthemum Hall, their former home, so she’s relatively happy in their new one. But she’s lonely. The other members of their community don’t care for her father and the way he conducts business. That’s not Galinda’s choice or her fault, but they still don’t want their children around her. Her father also worries that the enemies he’s made might try to reach him through Galinda, so he doesn’t let her leave the house much. As a result, her best friend is Robbery (imaginary) and a couple of kittens.
Eventually, Galinda decides to go to school. But for the same reason he won’t allow her to go out, her father forbids her from going to school. Eventually, after Galinda’s misadventure trying to defy him, they come to an agreement. She cannot go to school, but she can have a tutor. These outside influences help to open Galinda’s eyes to more than just reading or math (not that she ever opens her eyes to math). As Galinda comes to see the world and her family more clearly, she begins to explore just who she is, who she could be, and what she really wants in life.
Maguire’s best Wicked book yet
I have been reading Maguire’s work for a long time now. Waaaaaaayyyyy back in high school I picked up Wicked for the first time and I’ve been enjoying his stories ever since. But I have to admit, especially when I got older and actually thought a little more about what I was reading instead of just chewing up the story and moving on, his style is a little odd. There is a lot of beating around the bush, a lot of double entendres, and a lot of circular talk. It’s hard to ever be one hundred percent sure what’s being said or if something actually happened in his work.
But Galinda is a little different. There’s still a lot of beating around the bush and double entendres, but it feels more straightforward. I feel like I actually know what happened in the story. Galinda is sometimes a little confused, and I’m not sure how much she knows what’s going on, but I finally felt like I had a handle on things with this book.
To that effect, I finally felt like I understood her attraction to Elphie. Elphie is the antithesis of everything that Galinda is in Wicked. But after reading Galinda, we can see that most of what Galinda projects of herself is a mask, every bit as fake as her name, Glinda, that she changes to create the persona she wants people to believe. In reality, she’s just as awkward and lonely as little Elphaba was. She can just hide it better “because it’s not about aptitude, it’s the way you’re viewed”.
One more jewel on the Wicked crown
Maguire’s take on The Wizard of Oz has taken the world by storm in the last few years. It’s only natural that we’d like to know more about all the characters that have stolen our hearts. I’ve never particularly liked Galinda, finding her too fake and selfish for my taste. But after seeing where she came from and how she grew up, I get it. Her fakeness is a shield. Her selfishness is survival. Her bubbliness is a defense mechanism, and it works. Her father taught her one kind of cunning, and her mother taught her another; Galinda combines them to become Glinda and rises above them both. Find out the foundations of this iconic woman (you’ll spot the source of those magic bubbles too if you pay attention) in Galinda: A Charmed Childhood, out September 26th, 2026.
Rating: 8/10
Galinda: A Charmed Childhood by Gregory Maguire is available now!
Learn more about the book at the official website for the title.
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