There’s the crown-letted frog who can’t seem to truly love any of the women willing to kiss him, and break the spell. There’s the prince who’s spent years trying to determine the location of the comatose princess he’s meant to revive with a kiss, and has lately been less devoted to searching mountain and glen, more prone to bar-crawling, given to long stories about the girl who got away.

In his forthcoming collection, A Wild Swan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham rethinks some of our most beloved fairytales. The New York Times Magazine offers a sneak peek of the eponymous title story.