Medicine Road

Rating:
Summary: Arizona adventure
Review: I really enjoy a de Lint book. Nothing appears out of the ordinary, until you turn a corner or take one more step. Suddenly you're in a magical, more alive world. Ours, yet more so.
Medicine Road concerns Bess and Laurel, twin sisters traveling to Arizona for a series of concert appearances. Upon arrival in Tucson, they meet several people, threatening or otherwise. As in any de Lint book, no one is who they appear to be. His characters always reveal hidden potential. Character and reader both discover this potential as the story develops.
Their are six main actors, each of whom is at times the focus
of the action. Of these, the sisters' focal pieces are done first- person. A nice separation that draws the reader into their
viewpoint and how it affects the others around them.
The Charles Vess illustrations are light yet mysterious. I especially like the one inside the front cover. Charles de Lint is a modern-day storyteller with an old message: we are each more than we realize.
"We figure, if folks like our music, we've probably got something in common with them, and when you're far from home, this is pretty much the best way for us to meet like-minded folks."


Subterranean Press edition


Rating:
Summary: Medicine Road is good medicine
Review: Medicine Road is what I've come to expect from De Lint. Wonder-full! Bess and Laurel Dillard are back. We first met them in Seven Wild Sisters. This time they are in Arizona giving concerts at local establishments. They fall or leap into a magical adventure depending on which sister's version you happen to be reading. Each sister has her own way of relating to magic and the everyday world and it colors their respective response to it. Each sister grows and changes in the "same but different" way of twins. This duality is paralleled by the characters Alice and Jim, formerly jack rabbit and coyote. They grow and change as they interact with the twins and play out their own stories. De Lint's story is reminiscent of Terri Windling's The Wood Wife, which you should check out as well. But De Lint's magic is all his own. Read this and all of his other work. You won't be disappointed.