As a formal expression of these polarities, Russ modulates between science fiction and fantasy, satire and myth, and varies point of view, language, and level of characterization to achieve an elaborate stylistic counterpoint.
One of her stories, "My Boat" (1976), exhibits a pattern which appears over and over--the protagonist finds that the world as it is does not offer scope for personal growth and freedom. In this case, the heroine is a black teenager called Cissie, who is integrating a New York high school of wealthy white students. Misunderstood and even ostracized by society as "crazy," she holds within herself the elemental power to move behind reality to any point in space-time by traveling in her "boat," a kind of psychic time-machine, to Atlantis or Knossos. Her power magically transforms the dull stuff of everyday reality into dreams. The story is narrated by one of her schoolmates whose self-conscious, cynical jive talk gives way to a clipped, declarative language as he recounts to his literary agent years later his version of this high-school genius. Interestingly the narrative frame also shows the narrator's growing belief in Cissie, a process which makes him capable of joining the time-traveler at the story's end.
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