The Limits of Enchantment

I finished this a few days ago, and really loved it. Thinking back to Worldcon, it's such fun discovering an author from hearing him speak and being impressed, and then talking to him after and being even more so, but having read this book before the panel on which he spoke would have made even more sense of the talk. Because if ever there was an equipoise novel, given what I understood of the term from that panel, this is it. Great book, and a lot more going for it than just its straddling the border between the overtly fantastic and the purely realistic so ambiguously. (I gather that he's won a ton of British SF awards, and yet was amused to have consistently seen his books in fiction rather than SF & Fantasy sections.) A wonderful coming of age story, beautifully written, and such a sense of - oh, wonder sounds sappy, but can't quite help it! - about nature, community, even with all people's wrinkles and weaknesses. And one of the funniest first sexual experience that didn't happen as planned scenes ever. Older daughter's next, but she's currently struggling on an essay plan about Madame Bovary, which she liked almost as much I did! (Which is not one tiny little bit.) She finished reading about an hour ago, and threw the book on the floor in relief, much scaring the dog in the process.

Anyway, this is one I'd heartily recommend, and not just because I thought Graham Joyce seemed like such an intelligent, interesting and thoroughly nice guy! (Though I did...)