Dogland

Rating:
Summary: A rich, complex, thought-provoking look at race relations.
Review: An avid reader, I can nonetheless say this is the most rewarding book I've read in quite some time. From the book jacket description, I expected a simple tale about a family establishing a tourist attraction. What I got, however, was an enormously rich and complex look at race relations in the American South at the beginning of the 1960s. The narrator, an adult retelling events perceived as a child, presents the story in a magical way that is innocent and yet wise. The rest of the ensemble are as skillfully drawn; no character is entirely black or white (in terms of character or race), rendering them believable and thought-provoking. It's not every day one finds an author with the ability to develop such characters.

Issues are introduced by events that are conveyed in just enough detail to make you put the book down for a while and consider them. Add to that a hint of fantasy and supernatural, and you're left with a book that leads your mind beyond the boundaries of its covers. As I read the last page, my first instinct was to turn the book over and begin reading it again.

Rating:
Summary: A Southern Slice of Magical Realism
Review: I read about half of this 400+ page book in one day. (It was September 11, 2001, which should give you a hint about why.) This is that kind of absorbing work. It's about passages and transformations. A naturally-selfish and self-absorbed four-year-old becomes a slightly-less-so seven year old. A possible or actual affair tears a family apart, before it is tenously drawn back together. The time-bomb Eisenhower era ticks into the explosive sixties. And those who hate change lash out. Meanwhile, dieties and devils drift through the text, sometimes identifiable, sometimes not. (This is a good book to read with Gaiman's "American Gods" -- some of the same "characters" show up in both books.) And it's all told with the kind of simple-yet-beautiful prose that's the hardest kind of writing to pull off. The story is worth reading just to meet the best character, Luke Nix -- a dreamer yet a gritty realist, an unfair tyrant of a father yet a man of breathtaking courage and conviction. Read it if you want to get away for a while.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent weaving of magic into ordinary lives
Review: This book can be read on so many levels. You have the coming-of-age story, which alone would make the book worthwhile, but delicately introduced (and so subtly that many will probably miss it on the first read) is the element of magic. Will Shetterly is an excellent writer, and this is his masterwork.