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Available
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Publication
Tor Books (1992), Mass Market Paperback, 480 pages
Description
Fantasy. Romance. Historical Fiction. Young Adult Fiction. In the ancient Scottish ballad "Tam Lin," headstrong Janet defies Tam Lin to walk in her own land of Carterhaugh . . . and then must battle the Queen of Faery for possession of her lover�??s body and soul. In this version of "Tam Lin," masterfully crafted by Pamela Dean, Janet is a college student, "Carterhaugh" is Carter Hall at the university where her father teaches, and Tam Lin is a boy named Thomas Lane. Set against the backdrop of the early 1970s, imbued with wit, poetry, romance, and magic, Tam Lin has become a cult classic�??and once you begin reading, you�??ll know why. This reissue features an updated introduction by the book�??s original editor, the acclaimed Ter
User reviews
LibraryThing member atimco
This retelling of the 16th-century Scottish ballad has been highly praised, and so I was happy to find it secondhand. Unfortunately, it proved a disappointment and I'm left wondering why so many readers have loved it. It starts fairly well, but quickly wanders off into a tedious recital of four
The "Tam Lin" ballad tells the story of a young woman who must hold on to her lover, who is going to be sacrificed by the Queen of Faerie as a teind, or tithe to Hell. The young man is transformed into monstrous forms under the young woman's hands, but if she lets go, she will lose him forever. Pamela Dean's retelling is set in the 1970s at a small midwestern liberal arts college, where a young woman named Janet goes through her requisite classes and roommates and relationships.
There's no other word for it: the story draaaags, all through the minutiae of Janet's four years of college, even down to specific lectures she attends. Sometimes those are interesting, but the lack of plot throughout most of the pages is disappointing. About halfway through it began to feel like a slog as I waited for the story to start. The glimpses of the otherworld of Faerie that are, after all, what gives the story its interest are just the tiniest little snippets scattered thinly throughout the mundane recitals of class loads, faculty gossip, and uninteresting conversations. Things don't get interesting until the very end. I love thick books, but there has to be something interesting going on. Janet left me cold; I really didn't care about her college experience, and certainly not in this much detail.
Things did not tie together well at the end. Dean's elliptical style simply doesn't work when it comes to explaining how all the disparate subplot threads tie together. I *think* I understand the significance of the book-throwing and the suicides and all that, but it's all a bit foggy. Because they aren't properly dealt with, those elements feel very unrelated to the resolution at the end. One wants to ask, so what?
Dean has all kinds of literary prejudices that slip quite deliberately into the narrative. sometimes they are quirkily fun, and other times downright annoying, depending on whether or not you share the prejudice. Everyone is forever quoting poetry and plays, and while this is nice from an aesthetic standpoint, it makes for some very unconvincing characters. And I was an English major with a 4.0, so don't tell me it's because I just don't appreciate great literature!
I suppose these elements are realistic, but I couldn't stand the casual sex, or Janet's selfish determination to kill the baby growing inside of her because it would interfere with her career plans. People with different convictions probably wouldn't find these elements problematic in the least, but if you think I'm stuffy and uptight about reading something I don't agree with, read something you are fundamentally opposed to and see how enjoyable you can find it! There has to be a level of basic agreement between an author and reader for the reader to fully enjoy the experience. Not that I have to agree with the author on everything, but there's a big disconnect here that only intensified all the technical flaws of the novel.
So this is one "fantasy" book I'd never recommend. For a re-imagined "Tam Lin" story, Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard is much to be preferred. One and a half stars for Dean's effort feels almost too generous.
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years of college, with the Faerie plot unconvincingly hinted at here and there and then culminating in a tacked-on scene that feels like it belongs to a different book entirely. The "Tam Lin" ballad tells the story of a young woman who must hold on to her lover, who is going to be sacrificed by the Queen of Faerie as a teind, or tithe to Hell. The young man is transformed into monstrous forms under the young woman's hands, but if she lets go, she will lose him forever. Pamela Dean's retelling is set in the 1970s at a small midwestern liberal arts college, where a young woman named Janet goes through her requisite classes and roommates and relationships.
There's no other word for it: the story draaaags, all through the minutiae of Janet's four years of college, even down to specific lectures she attends. Sometimes those are interesting, but the lack of plot throughout most of the pages is disappointing. About halfway through it began to feel like a slog as I waited for the story to start. The glimpses of the otherworld of Faerie that are, after all, what gives the story its interest are just the tiniest little snippets scattered thinly throughout the mundane recitals of class loads, faculty gossip, and uninteresting conversations. Things don't get interesting until the very end. I love thick books, but there has to be something interesting going on. Janet left me cold; I really didn't care about her college experience, and certainly not in this much detail.
Things did not tie together well at the end. Dean's elliptical style simply doesn't work when it comes to explaining how all the disparate subplot threads tie together. I *think* I understand the significance of the book-throwing and the suicides and all that, but it's all a bit foggy. Because they aren't properly dealt with, those elements feel very unrelated to the resolution at the end. One wants to ask, so what?
Dean has all kinds of literary prejudices that slip quite deliberately into the narrative. sometimes they are quirkily fun, and other times downright annoying, depending on whether or not you share the prejudice. Everyone is forever quoting poetry and plays, and while this is nice from an aesthetic standpoint, it makes for some very unconvincing characters. And I was an English major with a 4.0, so don't tell me it's because I just don't appreciate great literature!
I suppose these elements are realistic, but I couldn't stand the casual sex, or Janet's selfish determination to kill the baby growing inside of her because it would interfere with her career plans. People with different convictions probably wouldn't find these elements problematic in the least, but if you think I'm stuffy and uptight about reading something I don't agree with, read something you are fundamentally opposed to and see how enjoyable you can find it! There has to be a level of basic agreement between an author and reader for the reader to fully enjoy the experience. Not that I have to agree with the author on everything, but there's a big disconnect here that only intensified all the technical flaws of the novel.
So this is one "fantasy" book I'd never recommend. For a re-imagined "Tam Lin" story, Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard is much to be preferred. One and a half stars for Dean's effort feels almost too generous.
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LibraryThing member Aerrin99
Never have I read a book which so wonderfully and perfectly captures that magical time that college can be, in the right place with the right people. This book made me absolutely /yearn/ for the days (8 years behind me now) that I spent reading complex literature and philosophy, listening to
It romanticizes college. Sure, it does. I've never met people who can quote poems and Shakespeare and the Iliad on demand, let alone a whole group of them. And of course my entire college experience wasn't just one big intellectual wonderland. But there was enough of it to color this whole book with a hazy wistfulness for that time in your life that is given over to learning, and ideas, and the people who share them.
I talk a lot about the way this book made me /feel/ (I actually pulled down my Norton Anthology to read some Victorian poetry afterward, guys) because the actual plot is not a compelling force. The back of the book blurb gives you spoilers for the last /fifty pages of the book/ - which ought to tell you when the 'Tam Lin' aspect kicks in.
That's not to say that the plot is bad - it's not. It's simply not what it says on the box. This book is a coming of age tale set in the academic wonderland of a small liberal arts college filled with top-notch intellectuals. It's salted with foreboding hints of the fantastical and supernatural, but the flavor it imparts is small. The book /works/ on the strength of its more mundane story, and on the world it creates. Tam Lin got into my mind and into my heart. I daydreamed about this book. I wanted to /live/ in this book. The atmosphere Dean creates is rich and thick and powerful.
What does work about the plot itself is the backward view. In retrospect, the pieces fit nicely and there's that sense of uncovering a secret that sends a thrill of joy down your spine. I suspect it's an intensely rewarding re-read. But I don't recommend anyone reading it expecting a fairy tale filled with magic. It just isn't that sort of book.
I definitely recommend Tam Lin - and I wouldn't be surprised if, on some nostalgic day, I picked it up to read again myself.
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professors unfold the past or the particulars of a poem, and then talking into the night about an idea that felt so new and exciting and fresh that our whole worlds seemed changed. It romanticizes college. Sure, it does. I've never met people who can quote poems and Shakespeare and the Iliad on demand, let alone a whole group of them. And of course my entire college experience wasn't just one big intellectual wonderland. But there was enough of it to color this whole book with a hazy wistfulness for that time in your life that is given over to learning, and ideas, and the people who share them.
I talk a lot about the way this book made me /feel/ (I actually pulled down my Norton Anthology to read some Victorian poetry afterward, guys) because the actual plot is not a compelling force. The back of the book blurb gives you spoilers for the last /fifty pages of the book/ - which ought to tell you when the 'Tam Lin' aspect kicks in.
That's not to say that the plot is bad - it's not. It's simply not what it says on the box. This book is a coming of age tale set in the academic wonderland of a small liberal arts college filled with top-notch intellectuals. It's salted with foreboding hints of the fantastical and supernatural, but the flavor it imparts is small. The book /works/ on the strength of its more mundane story, and on the world it creates. Tam Lin got into my mind and into my heart. I daydreamed about this book. I wanted to /live/ in this book. The atmosphere Dean creates is rich and thick and powerful.
What does work about the plot itself is the backward view. In retrospect, the pieces fit nicely and there's that sense of uncovering a secret that sends a thrill of joy down your spine. I suspect it's an intensely rewarding re-read. But I don't recommend anyone reading it expecting a fairy tale filled with magic. It just isn't that sort of book.
I definitely recommend Tam Lin - and I wouldn't be surprised if, on some nostalgic day, I picked it up to read again myself.
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LibraryThing member rosstrowbridge
This book sat on my TBR bookcase for far too long, in part because the Thomas Canty cover strongly suggested a "Fairyland" setting (aided and abetted by the book's being part of the "The Fairy Tale Series," edited by Terri Windling), of which I had read far too much recently, much of it YA. When I
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finally did pick it up, I was utterly lost. While TAM LIN is indeed a retelling of the old ballad and does indeed feature young adult characters, the heart of the story is the insular world of a small liberal arts college very much like the one I attended. From the moment our heroine sets foot on campus, I recognized the landscape of an intense, crucible-like academic community. She faces all the usual problems of adjusting to her room mates, figuring out what classes to take (Literature? Classics?), how to relate to men, who she is and who she wants to become, who she loves and what she is willing to sacrifice for them. Even under normal conditions, the college years can be intense, baffling, agonizing, ecstatic and transformative. We know, of course, that Magic Is Afoot, for the cover and description clearly tell us so. Mysterious figures lurk everywhere, and even the college campus blurs into the mythic dimension at times. Dean throws in the sexual revolution made possible by the Pill, a drop-dead gorgeous lover-in-need-of-rescuing, Shakespearean actors who speak from experience, a ghost who throws books out of dorm windows, exams and courtship, plus some very nifty classes I wish I'd taken. This book is not only a keeper, but one I enthusiastically recommend to anyone who has been or has wanted to go to a small liberal arts college. Show Less
LibraryThing member WinterFox
Look, I'm as big of a fan of updated or modernized fairy tales as just about anyone I know. I've got the Beagle ones; I liked Fire and Hemlock and Eight Days of Luke, both by Diana Wynne Jones; I very much enjoyed Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer, etc. So, in principle, I should have liked
But there are definitely ways to screw things up. Like, the pacing. This book had 4 years of college in it, which can be okay, but not when one week is 4 chapters and then a year can go by in 10 pages. It gets hard to tell what's happening when, after a while, and the characters sort of drift in time some.
Another problem with the pacing was definitely that the real fairy tale portion of this didn't show up till, say, page 420, which was perilously close to the end. By that point, she should just have made it allusional, but the whole end sequence with fairies and such goes by too quickly, and the otherwise-normal people take it more in stride than I really feel worked well. It feels like, "Oh, okay, the queen of the fairies has my boyfriend in thrall. First I'll save him, and then we'll discuss Alexander Pope."
Maybe I didn't hang around enough English majors, either, but I never found people that likely to refer regularly to 18th century poetry and ancient Greek playwrights and such. I had fairly literate friends, but it never went nearly that far. Also, the style was more descriptive of everything that was going on than I personally prefer; I like sparser prose, as it were.
I did like the plot and the heroine well enough, even if they weren't always presented the best way, but this wasn't enough to save it. They can't all be good ones.
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this.But there are definitely ways to screw things up. Like, the pacing. This book had 4 years of college in it, which can be okay, but not when one week is 4 chapters and then a year can go by in 10 pages. It gets hard to tell what's happening when, after a while, and the characters sort of drift in time some.
Another problem with the pacing was definitely that the real fairy tale portion of this didn't show up till, say, page 420, which was perilously close to the end. By that point, she should just have made it allusional, but the whole end sequence with fairies and such goes by too quickly, and the otherwise-normal people take it more in stride than I really feel worked well. It feels like, "Oh, okay, the queen of the fairies has my boyfriend in thrall. First I'll save him, and then we'll discuss Alexander Pope."
Maybe I didn't hang around enough English majors, either, but I never found people that likely to refer regularly to 18th century poetry and ancient Greek playwrights and such. I had fairly literate friends, but it never went nearly that far. Also, the style was more descriptive of everything that was going on than I personally prefer; I like sparser prose, as it were.
I did like the plot and the heroine well enough, even if they weren't always presented the best way, but this wasn't enough to save it. They can't all be good ones.
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LibraryThing member lycomayflower
What a strange, wonderful book. Ostensibly a retelling of the Scottish ballad "Tam Lin," this is really a story about college. The "Tam Lin" stuff is only very subtly there (until it is not subtle at all), but the weird things going on because of the seepage of Elfland into the small liberal arts
Tam Lin takes place in the early seventies: there were no computers and no internet, each dorm floor had one telephone in the hall, and each dorm building had one TV in the lounge. Signing up for classes involved a paper form and tramping around campus to gather signatures and hand in that form in person. If one wanted to stay completely isolated from the outside world, one hardly needed to try. When I attended college in the early aughts, technology had already made avoiding anything beyond the insular, scholarly world of campus much harder (nearly everyone brought a computer to campus; we had (wired, omg) internet connections in our dorm rooms; every room had a phone; you were hard-pressed to find a room without a dizzying array of other distracting, worldly technologies: televisions, VCRs, DVD players, stereos, game consoles). But hardly anyone had a cellphone (and if they did, they were cell phones, which did little your room phone couldn't do), and social media, for all intents and purposes, did not exist (Facebook had not yet hit the 'net and neither had Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, or Instagram. Even Myspace hadn't popped up yet). The easiest way to contact someone on campus was still to go knock on their door (and leave them a handwritten note if they weren't in). The registrar's office was computerized, but we still signed up for classes by filling out a form and tramping around campus after signatures. Not everyone then lived primarily within the world of campus (even to the extent they could) because not everyone wanted to. I'm sure this has always been true (campuses which became hotbeds of political dissent surely had thousands of students doing everything they could to avoid succumbing to an insular "college as magic garden") and I imagine small liberal arts colleges (especially those is small, semi-rural towns) have always been "better"** at creating this sort of environment than large universities, especially those in big cities.
I wonder, though, if college students today, who all carry (by 1970's standards) unfathomably powerful computers in their pockets and need never be more than a finger-swipe away from any and every aspect of the "outside" world they care to see, can ever really get to the "magic garden" of college that Dean describes, even if they want to. I suspect they cannot, and that strikes me as a bit of a tragedy. Not that our new technologies can't and don't do for us many wonderful things, but they, of course, leave some old ways of being tattered in their wake. This particular experience of college may be one of them, and that makes me doubly, triply, thrilled that there's a book like Tam Lin out there that captures so nicely what that purposely, delightedly isolated four-year-long sojourn into a kind of other world felt like. The retelling of "Tam Lin" gives the story something to hang itself on, something for it to do, but the book is really a snapshot of a piece of 20th-century life I suspect is largely gone.
*Page 64, for those of you following along. :-p
**Scare quotes because I suspect that only a small number of students at any school at any time actually think this kind of world is better.
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college of the story do not stand out as odd, and eventually everything comes together. I only know about Tam Lin because Jo Walton talked about it in her What Makes This Book So Great (and I might have made a quite undignified noise and a very greedy grab when I came across it in a used-bookstore trawl last week. Thankfully, only husbeast, who is sympathetic to such things, was within close earshot). Walton says Dean "is doing college as magic garden. The whole experience of going to university is magical, in a sense, is a time away from other time, a time that influences people's whole lives but is and isn't part of the real world."* Agreed, and I thought throughout reading Tam Lin that Dean had captured that time perfectly: the world of reading and learning and of the subjects you're studying can (and persistently do, especially for a particular brand of student) seem far, far more real than anything outside the sphere the college throws up, and you often live in your friends' pockets in ways that will never again be not unhealthy. It is a world I sometimes suspect the 21st century is killing; I was struck with the notion while reading that I might have been part of the last group of students who could experience college in quite this way, who would see their college experience in the book. Tam Lin takes place in the early seventies: there were no computers and no internet, each dorm floor had one telephone in the hall, and each dorm building had one TV in the lounge. Signing up for classes involved a paper form and tramping around campus to gather signatures and hand in that form in person. If one wanted to stay completely isolated from the outside world, one hardly needed to try. When I attended college in the early aughts, technology had already made avoiding anything beyond the insular, scholarly world of campus much harder (nearly everyone brought a computer to campus; we had (wired, omg) internet connections in our dorm rooms; every room had a phone; you were hard-pressed to find a room without a dizzying array of other distracting, worldly technologies: televisions, VCRs, DVD players, stereos, game consoles). But hardly anyone had a cellphone (and if they did, they were cell phones, which did little your room phone couldn't do), and social media, for all intents and purposes, did not exist (Facebook had not yet hit the 'net and neither had Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, or Instagram. Even Myspace hadn't popped up yet). The easiest way to contact someone on campus was still to go knock on their door (and leave them a handwritten note if they weren't in). The registrar's office was computerized, but we still signed up for classes by filling out a form and tramping around campus after signatures. Not everyone then lived primarily within the world of campus (even to the extent they could) because not everyone wanted to. I'm sure this has always been true (campuses which became hotbeds of political dissent surely had thousands of students doing everything they could to avoid succumbing to an insular "college as magic garden") and I imagine small liberal arts colleges (especially those is small, semi-rural towns) have always been "better"** at creating this sort of environment than large universities, especially those in big cities.
I wonder, though, if college students today, who all carry (by 1970's standards) unfathomably powerful computers in their pockets and need never be more than a finger-swipe away from any and every aspect of the "outside" world they care to see, can ever really get to the "magic garden" of college that Dean describes, even if they want to. I suspect they cannot, and that strikes me as a bit of a tragedy. Not that our new technologies can't and don't do for us many wonderful things, but they, of course, leave some old ways of being tattered in their wake. This particular experience of college may be one of them, and that makes me doubly, triply, thrilled that there's a book like Tam Lin out there that captures so nicely what that purposely, delightedly isolated four-year-long sojourn into a kind of other world felt like. The retelling of "Tam Lin" gives the story something to hang itself on, something for it to do, but the book is really a snapshot of a piece of 20th-century life I suspect is largely gone.
*Page 64, for those of you following along. :-p
**Scare quotes because I suspect that only a small number of students at any school at any time actually think this kind of world is better.
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LibraryThing member trinityofone
Mixed feelings, once again! On the plus side, I absolutely could not put this book down. Dean makes the setting—a midwestern liberal arts college in the early '70s—come alive so completely that even when the biggest issue at stake is what classes Janet, our heroine, is going to take, I was
That said, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book because I did enjoy the build-up so much, and because Janet is such a wonderful character. Also: it's a book where the hero's an English major! That, alone, makes me extraordinarily happy.
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utterly entranced. In fact, the straightforward college narrative is so convincing and so good that I would have been perfectly happy for the book to be about nothing but that. Which is not to say that I didn't like the undercurrent of weird supernatural goings-on—on the contrary, I LOVE that kind of thing. I love hints that something's not quite right, of something "off" just beneath the surface. I love that at the beginning of a story—but I must put the emphasis there on *the beginning*. In a 460 page novel, I think it's a problem if said undercurrents stay nothing but undercurrents until page 425. The revelation ends up feeling rushed; the mystical climax oddly tacked on. It got to the point where I kind of wanted Janet's rescue of her Tam Lin stand-in to remain metaphorical, not magical—an atypical response for me. Especially when all the characters seem so blasé about what's just happened. I was like, "Hello! You only had about 20 pages to get used to this! How are you back to discussing Pope already?"That said, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book because I did enjoy the build-up so much, and because Janet is such a wonderful character. Also: it's a book where the hero's an English major! That, alone, makes me extraordinarily happy.
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LibraryThing member Herenya
A retelling of the Tam Lin ballad in a small American college in the 1970s, about an "English major", her roommates and their academic and social endeavours, which wasn't quite what I expected. I think the best way to put it is to quote "when it was good, it was very, very good and when it was bad,
The first part of the book - really, the first year, which is over half of the book - was wonderful, (even if the American-isms bothered me a little.) The style is warm, light and it was an absorbing read. It is a very different world, 70s American liberal arts college to my university experience but there are still commonalities that, being a uni student, I identified with, and other aspects I enjoyed or found interesting.
As someone else said, the characters "are rich, warm, funny, and endearing, even when they're busy making the other characters - and the reader! - want to scratch their eyes out." I enjoyed the way the characters spent forever quoting at each other, the insights into literature, inter-department conflicts, relationships, growing up and just the wealth of little details. It's humorous and well written. The ballad is very subtly woven throughout and added a nice mystery-touch.
I found some of the romantic interactions frustrating, say the least, but it was also possibly "descriptive rather than prescriptive" - I don't think it was advocating the mistakes the characters made. The "middle" part of the book, which is more towards the end than the middle, covered too much time too quickly, without giving a real sense of it.
The ending was good - satisfying, and also somehow frustratingly inconclusive about things which occur to you several hours later. It was a little abrupt, perhaps. Still, I thought it was well-handled for what she did. Maybe the issue is not to do with the book's quality nor whether or not I liked it, but that I would have handled certain aspects differently, had I written it.
I recommend it, but with reservations.
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it was horrid". Yet that I cannot easily dismiss it and the amount of time I've spent rereading it says a lot.The first part of the book - really, the first year, which is over half of the book - was wonderful, (even if the American-isms bothered me a little.) The style is warm, light and it was an absorbing read. It is a very different world, 70s American liberal arts college to my university experience but there are still commonalities that, being a uni student, I identified with, and other aspects I enjoyed or found interesting.
As someone else said, the characters "are rich, warm, funny, and endearing, even when they're busy making the other characters - and the reader! - want to scratch their eyes out." I enjoyed the way the characters spent forever quoting at each other, the insights into literature, inter-department conflicts, relationships, growing up and just the wealth of little details. It's humorous and well written. The ballad is very subtly woven throughout and added a nice mystery-touch.
I found some of the romantic interactions frustrating, say the least, but it was also possibly "descriptive rather than prescriptive" - I don't think it was advocating the mistakes the characters made. The "middle" part of the book, which is more towards the end than the middle, covered too much time too quickly, without giving a real sense of it.
The ending was good - satisfying, and also somehow frustratingly inconclusive about things which occur to you several hours later. It was a little abrupt, perhaps. Still, I thought it was well-handled for what she did. Maybe the issue is not to do with the book's quality nor whether or not I liked it, but that I would have handled certain aspects differently, had I written it.
I recommend it, but with reservations.
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LibraryThing member JandL
I actually like the language, the mannered way the kids have of speaking to one another, the marvel of being at a liberal arts college -- but dag gone it, *nothing* happens. I don't need fireworks and strange happenings, but I can't finish this book with so many other on the shelf that I've never
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read or really really want to re-read. I can see how it would appeal; the slow, real-time-ish way that the story proceeds is done very well. It's just not my thing. Show Less
LibraryThing member spotzzzgirl
This novel has a haunting, lyrical quality that fits well with its modern-fairy tale subject matter. Pamela Dean’s story follows the college experience of Janet Carter, English Major at Blackstock College. From the start of the story, strangeness seems to plague the college: mysterious flying
Janet felt real to me; I felt a kinship with her, having been an English major myself, and it was easy to put myself into her shoes as she tries to deal with the mysteries of the college, as well as the mysteries of interpersonal relationships. Her roommates Molly and Christina were real and engaging too, with their own opinions, likes and dislikes, and personality quirks, and I cared about their relationships just as much as I cared about Janet’s.
Although some people have complained that the fairy tale elements felt tacked on and forced in at the ending, I disagree. I thought the Tam Lin ballad and its supernatural elements were skillfully woven into the story; from the Halloween ride and the midnight piping early in the story, to the strange discovery of the names of Shakespeare’s players matching those of her friends’, the tension builds up to Thomas’s revelation about why he tried to escape the classics department and his fate. The ending, with Janet saving Thomas and then the two of them having to decide how to live with each other and their unborn child, brought the story back to reality.
I’d recommend this story to anyone who likes fantastical tales with a firm grounding in reality—and to college English majors, too!
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books, sleepwalking floor mates, haunting music late into the night, and the odd attitude of Janet’s advisor all subtly hint that there is something not quite right at the college. Janet felt real to me; I felt a kinship with her, having been an English major myself, and it was easy to put myself into her shoes as she tries to deal with the mysteries of the college, as well as the mysteries of interpersonal relationships. Her roommates Molly and Christina were real and engaging too, with their own opinions, likes and dislikes, and personality quirks, and I cared about their relationships just as much as I cared about Janet’s.
Although some people have complained that the fairy tale elements felt tacked on and forced in at the ending, I disagree. I thought the Tam Lin ballad and its supernatural elements were skillfully woven into the story; from the Halloween ride and the midnight piping early in the story, to the strange discovery of the names of Shakespeare’s players matching those of her friends’, the tension builds up to Thomas’s revelation about why he tried to escape the classics department and his fate. The ending, with Janet saving Thomas and then the two of them having to decide how to live with each other and their unborn child, brought the story back to reality.
I’d recommend this story to anyone who likes fantastical tales with a firm grounding in reality—and to college English majors, too!
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LibraryThing member thesmellofbooks
I am divided in my reactions to this novel. There is much of interest and charm in it, but there is way way way too much description, even for me. The story bumps along far too long, with far too little happening or changing, making it more of a basket for ruminations on literature and theatre than
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a full-bodied story in itself. I would recommend it to certain folk who would be entertained by the ruminations and evocations of their student days, and I do have some fondness for the characters, but I would love to take a very sharp editor's blade to this book. Show Less
LibraryThing member jsburbidge
I have two bones to pick with this book; well, actually, two bones. One small one with the author and a much larger one with the current publisher's marketing department.
The smaller bone first: I was a faculty child for my undergraduate years, and an English major (along with a block of Classics).
Of my five professors in first year, I was acquainted with three, not because I chose courses based in whether I knew who taught them (though I did choose sections in two courses by what I knew of them: of the two professors, one I had known for eight years, and one I knew of only by name) but just because one becomes familiar with one's father's SCR and departmental colleagues, not to mention the number of faculty members whose children had gone to high school with one. And all my teachers, all the dons, my head of college, knew who I was.
Janet, by comparison, knows the campus, but not the people. I have a very hard time seeing her as a faculty child.
As for the bigger bone: this book was originally published as an adult fantasy book as part of Tor's Fairy Tale series. It has been republished, and marketed, as a YA/teen book.
This is a book whose full enjoyment depends on things like knowing who Robert Armin was, or what the actual sound of Shakespeare's English was like. It helps if one knows Le Roman de la Rose, The Lady's Not For Burning, Tourneur, Summer's Last Will and Testament, classical tragedy, and Stoppard, or at least about them. These are not things which any plausible typical teen is going to know. (I did, in fact, know these things by 19, by which time I was in second year university, but I'm pretty sure that's not the slot envisaged by "teen literature".) There is no reasonable sense in which this book can be considered as aimed at anything other than an adult audience, and a fairly well-educated adult audience at that.
Overall, though, it's a delightful book, and better (I think) than Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock, although Jones has a better structure, starting in medias res. The disparity in ages in Jones' version works against the story, whereas the undergraduate atmosphere of Dean's story actively helps the flow of the story.
There are two complaints I see about it which I want to answer.
First is the pacing and structure. As Jo Walton said regarding her experience of writing her Barrayaran/Shakespearian Tam Lin, the structure of the ballad mirrors the structure of the book, and is an integral part of the tale: that is, there is a long secular lead-up with the fairy ride coming only at the very end. Not only that, but Dean succeeds in making this book two parallel and intertwined stories: one stands up well with no Fairy Queen at all: it's the story Molly refers to when she says, in response to Janet's "It's only been three weeks.", "If you mean you and Thomas, it's been three years": Just excise a chapter and a half and you have a lovely, Gaudy Night-level nostalgic tale of University and a slowly developing love. The second tale is that of those who have been taken under hill, filtered through naive perspective of Janet: Nick's and Robin's story, one of separation from the world even in interaction with it; and that story has its climax with the full revelation of the unhumanness of the Faerie Queen.
The compression and extension of time reflect subjective experience: the non-routine highlighted, the routine passed over.
There is also the complaint that people do not talk like that: i.e. quote extended (or even short) bits of Shakespeare, Nashe, or Homer in general conversation, To which I must respond: I know such people, and I have been one of them. All it takes is a decent memory, reasonably wide reading, and an appropriate context. (In the book, of course, these elements have a double role).
The smaller bone first: I was a faculty child for my undergraduate years, and an English major (along with a block of Classics).
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Janet's relative lack of knowledge of the university (specifically, the faculty) where her father teaches Romantics (mine taught Hegel) keeps breaking my WSOD.Of my five professors in first year, I was acquainted with three, not because I chose courses based in whether I knew who taught them (though I did choose sections in two courses by what I knew of them: of the two professors, one I had known for eight years, and one I knew of only by name) but just because one becomes familiar with one's father's SCR and departmental colleagues, not to mention the number of faculty members whose children had gone to high school with one. And all my teachers, all the dons, my head of college, knew who I was.
Janet, by comparison, knows the campus, but not the people. I have a very hard time seeing her as a faculty child.
As for the bigger bone: this book was originally published as an adult fantasy book as part of Tor's Fairy Tale series. It has been republished, and marketed, as a YA/teen book.
This is a book whose full enjoyment depends on things like knowing who Robert Armin was, or what the actual sound of Shakespeare's English was like. It helps if one knows Le Roman de la Rose, The Lady's Not For Burning, Tourneur, Summer's Last Will and Testament, classical tragedy, and Stoppard, or at least about them. These are not things which any plausible typical teen is going to know. (I did, in fact, know these things by 19, by which time I was in second year university, but I'm pretty sure that's not the slot envisaged by "teen literature".) There is no reasonable sense in which this book can be considered as aimed at anything other than an adult audience, and a fairly well-educated adult audience at that.
Overall, though, it's a delightful book, and better (I think) than Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock, although Jones has a better structure, starting in medias res. The disparity in ages in Jones' version works against the story, whereas the undergraduate atmosphere of Dean's story actively helps the flow of the story.
There are two complaints I see about it which I want to answer.
First is the pacing and structure. As Jo Walton said regarding her experience of writing her Barrayaran/Shakespearian Tam Lin, the structure of the ballad mirrors the structure of the book, and is an integral part of the tale: that is, there is a long secular lead-up with the fairy ride coming only at the very end. Not only that, but Dean succeeds in making this book two parallel and intertwined stories: one stands up well with no Fairy Queen at all: it's the story Molly refers to when she says, in response to Janet's "It's only been three weeks.", "If you mean you and Thomas, it's been three years": Just excise a chapter and a half and you have a lovely, Gaudy Night-level nostalgic tale of University and a slowly developing love. The second tale is that of those who have been taken under hill, filtered through naive perspective of Janet: Nick's and Robin's story, one of separation from the world even in interaction with it; and that story has its climax with the full revelation of the unhumanness of the Faerie Queen.
The compression and extension of time reflect subjective experience: the non-routine highlighted, the routine passed over.
There is also the complaint that people do not talk like that: i.e. quote extended (or even short) bits of Shakespeare, Nashe, or Homer in general conversation, To which I must respond: I know such people, and I have been one of them. All it takes is a decent memory, reasonably wide reading, and an appropriate context. (In the book, of course, these elements have a double role).
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LibraryThing member nefernika
I reread the Secret Country trilogy by Pamela Dean several times in high school, so I picked this up when I found it at a used book store hoping that it would be as enjoyable. The Tam Lin storyline takes a long time to show up. I admit that it's being set up early on, but, basically, this book is
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four years of college in 400 pages. The dialogue is pretty unbelievable, even if some of the students are supposed to be fairies sojourning at a liberal arts college, and the Tam Lin ending feels rather abrupt and tacked on. Overall, I was disappointed. Show Less
LibraryThing member N.W.Moors
This is one of those classic fantasy books on my TBR list forever. I finally got around to reading it, and am I glad I did. To be fair, this book barely has any overt fantasy, mainly in the last few pages, but it's set in the early seventies at a college in the Midwest. I'm from that era, so I
It's based on an old Scottish ballad, so there are actually a lot more fantasy references if you know the story. In the song, Janet Carter is pregnant by her lover Tam Lin who belongs to the Queen of Elfland. She must rescue him by pulling him from his horse and keeping hold of him as the Queen transforms him into different creatures, finally not dropping him as a burning brand.
Ms. Dean transplants the story to a college setting, which works very well. I'm not sure that a younger reader would appreciate the details she weaves into the story. Still, I delighted in the references to purple Mimeo sheets, checkbooks, political and music asides, and other iconic symbols of that time.
I also appreciated the quotes and references to other books and plays that were part of a college education (at least back then - do they even teach Latin and Greek in school anymore?). It took me back to my own college days when we left notes in Elvish for each other and shared music/books in free-for-all discussions late at night; there's a definite nostalgia element in reading this book for me.
The writing is lyrical, a descriptive love letter to the setting and the characters. The protagonist, Janet, is practical, testy, and strong. She deals with contraception, difficult roommates, and her studies. She wants to get the most out of her college years while constantly feeling she's missing things. She struggles with which courses she wants to take or the secrets her friends may be hiding, but also doesn't have the time to delve into them much. This leads to the first few years seeming stretched out and the ending feeling a bit rushed. It's not enough to bother me as I enjoyed the book immensely. Tam Lin is a throwback to the fantasy books I read in my youth by Charles de Lint, Patrica McKillip, Robin McKinley, or Terri Wilding. It may not be for everyone, but I'm firmly in the camp that loves this book and plan to reread it in future.
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appreciated the story anyway. It's based on an old Scottish ballad, so there are actually a lot more fantasy references if you know the story. In the song, Janet Carter is pregnant by her lover Tam Lin who belongs to the Queen of Elfland. She must rescue him by pulling him from his horse and keeping hold of him as the Queen transforms him into different creatures, finally not dropping him as a burning brand.
Ms. Dean transplants the story to a college setting, which works very well. I'm not sure that a younger reader would appreciate the details she weaves into the story. Still, I delighted in the references to purple Mimeo sheets, checkbooks, political and music asides, and other iconic symbols of that time.
I also appreciated the quotes and references to other books and plays that were part of a college education (at least back then - do they even teach Latin and Greek in school anymore?). It took me back to my own college days when we left notes in Elvish for each other and shared music/books in free-for-all discussions late at night; there's a definite nostalgia element in reading this book for me.
The writing is lyrical, a descriptive love letter to the setting and the characters. The protagonist, Janet, is practical, testy, and strong. She deals with contraception, difficult roommates, and her studies. She wants to get the most out of her college years while constantly feeling she's missing things. She struggles with which courses she wants to take or the secrets her friends may be hiding, but also doesn't have the time to delve into them much. This leads to the first few years seeming stretched out and the ending feeling a bit rushed. It's not enough to bother me as I enjoyed the book immensely. Tam Lin is a throwback to the fantasy books I read in my youth by Charles de Lint, Patrica McKillip, Robin McKinley, or Terri Wilding. It may not be for everyone, but I'm firmly in the camp that loves this book and plan to reread it in future.
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LibraryThing member threadnsong
This is the third time I've read this large volume and both times were before I could record my thoughts. The first time I read it I felt such a huge amount of regret about the way that my own college years went. It was almost a manual about how to stick with a major you like, not one your
The second time I read it, the regrets went away and I read an entertaining story. But I still felt there were things I didn't "get" in the history of Janet and her friends.
This third time is the charm. I read it with a sense of unreality of the re-telling and the characters. My biggest question was, what 18 year old incoming freshman has read Tolkien, Shakespeare, Eddison, and Eliot and can quote them from memory at a moment's notice? Her relationship with Nick is a bit long for an unsuccessful college-age romance, and I felt the same sense of unbalance in the book itself as I did with Book 4 (or 5?) of the Harry Potter series: the entire first half of the book is her freshman year. I think it was Book 5 in the Harry Potter series where the first 180 pages is devoted to Harry's first *week* back in Hogwarts after Cedric Diggory's death. Same thing here. There is just too much detail on books, quotes, where a particular hall is located and walking over the stone bridge vs. the other bridge over a lack that is a wooden bridge, and which hall is new and which is over the steam tunnels . . . too many details that really remain unused, even at the tail end.
The important part of this story, that of Janet's rescue of Thomas, is devoted to a strong romance of a few months and the last 10 pages dealing with the rescue itself. I would have much preferred an underlying dynamic that is less about Janet and the many books she reads and instead a romance and an exploration of the Fairy Queen that forms a stronger backbone through this huge book.
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(graduating) boyfriend likes in your freshman year.The second time I read it, the regrets went away and I read an entertaining story. But I still felt there were things I didn't "get" in the history of Janet and her friends.
This third time is the charm. I read it with a sense of unreality of the re-telling and the characters. My biggest question was, what 18 year old incoming freshman has read Tolkien, Shakespeare, Eddison, and Eliot and can quote them from memory at a moment's notice? Her relationship with Nick is a bit long for an unsuccessful college-age romance, and I felt the same sense of unbalance in the book itself as I did with Book 4 (or 5?) of the Harry Potter series: the entire first half of the book is her freshman year. I think it was Book 5 in the Harry Potter series where the first 180 pages is devoted to Harry's first *week* back in Hogwarts after Cedric Diggory's death. Same thing here. There is just too much detail on books, quotes, where a particular hall is located and walking over the stone bridge vs. the other bridge over a lack that is a wooden bridge, and which hall is new and which is over the steam tunnels . . . too many details that really remain unused, even at the tail end.
The important part of this story, that of Janet's rescue of Thomas, is devoted to a strong romance of a few months and the last 10 pages dealing with the rescue itself. I would have much preferred an underlying dynamic that is less about Janet and the many books she reads and instead a romance and an exploration of the Fairy Queen that forms a stronger backbone through this huge book.
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LibraryThing member KatieWallace
Reading this book made me feel like I was slowly going crazy. The borders of fairy land truly nudge up against this otherwise normal story leaving a maddening hint. This book will not leave me alone.
LibraryThing member TheLostEntwife
I've had Tam Lin sitting on my shelf for almost two years now. I stumbled across the title as a suggested read when finishing up one of my many fairy tale retelling books and thought it looked interesting, in spite of the horrible cover art. So I requested it from Paperback Swap and was rewarded
I didn't pick up any super long reads while I was attending school, so now that I have graduated and moved on with my life I decided it was time to give this book a shot. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that, like me, the main character was an English major who went to a small, Liberal Arts college... and from there the similarities grew.
I felt like I was back in school again and that feeling for me is like having a warm blanket wrapped around me as I read. I thoroughly enjoyed the 70's feel of the story (pinned collars on a velvet dress!) and the references to new and old friends I'd made through my studies at the school. Although I do not have as much love for Shakespeare as Janet had, I sympathized with her when it came to her apathetic outlook on American authors and shared in her fascination with the Greek literature. I recognized many of the references in the book and those I didn't, I was inspired to look up and check out.
There was so much time devoted to detailing the life of an English major and college student that the rest of the re-told ballad seemed pale in comparison, however. As much as I enjoyed the story of Janet and Tina and Molly and their respective loves - along with the references to events unfolding in the early 70's, their stories were so closely woven into the rest of the tale that it was difficult until the end for me to understand clearly what was happening. Granted, this might have been due to my general unfamiliarity with the ballad of Tam Lin, which was somewhat cleared up by its insertion into the end of the book; but, still... a little more clarity and less blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality would not have hurt the book.
Additionally, there are some really strange pacing issues happening in the book. So much time is spent on Janet's freshman year resulted in me feeling rushed and a little confused by the speedy way the remaining years were dealt with. My expectations had been built up and I was looking forward to the same types of description and detail and it simply was not provided.
Now, with all that said, I still thoroughly enjoyed this book. It made me slow down and appreciate more than just the story being told. In a way, it came across like a love song to English majors and for that reason alone it will hold a dear place in my heart.
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with a nearly pristine, if a bit stinky, copy of a book that I was about to learn is a cult favorite in quite a few of my close circles.I didn't pick up any super long reads while I was attending school, so now that I have graduated and moved on with my life I decided it was time to give this book a shot. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that, like me, the main character was an English major who went to a small, Liberal Arts college... and from there the similarities grew.
I felt like I was back in school again and that feeling for me is like having a warm blanket wrapped around me as I read. I thoroughly enjoyed the 70's feel of the story (pinned collars on a velvet dress!) and the references to new and old friends I'd made through my studies at the school. Although I do not have as much love for Shakespeare as Janet had, I sympathized with her when it came to her apathetic outlook on American authors and shared in her fascination with the Greek literature. I recognized many of the references in the book and those I didn't, I was inspired to look up and check out.
There was so much time devoted to detailing the life of an English major and college student that the rest of the re-told ballad seemed pale in comparison, however. As much as I enjoyed the story of Janet and Tina and Molly and their respective loves - along with the references to events unfolding in the early 70's, their stories were so closely woven into the rest of the tale that it was difficult until the end for me to understand clearly what was happening. Granted, this might have been due to my general unfamiliarity with the ballad of Tam Lin, which was somewhat cleared up by its insertion into the end of the book; but, still... a little more clarity and less blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality would not have hurt the book.
Additionally, there are some really strange pacing issues happening in the book. So much time is spent on Janet's freshman year resulted in me feeling rushed and a little confused by the speedy way the remaining years were dealt with. My expectations had been built up and I was looking forward to the same types of description and detail and it simply was not provided.
Now, with all that said, I still thoroughly enjoyed this book. It made me slow down and appreciate more than just the story being told. In a way, it came across like a love song to English majors and for that reason alone it will hold a dear place in my heart.
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LibraryThing member satyridae
Letting this one simmer a bit, I'm not ready to review it. Hell, I'm not sure I was ready to read it.
ETA:
Okay.
I loved the literary allusions. I found the characters, for the most part, quite believable- and the unbelievable ones were Myth Incarnate, so that was wonderful. The pacing was uneven and
But.
The thing that I hated about this book is that it caused me no small measure of bitter regret. I try to never indulge in regret. I do not repine. My motto as regards regrets, like Lazarus Long's, has long been "When the ship lifts, all bills are paid." And this book, from the first page through the last, made me so sad for the chances I did not take, for the scholarship I scorned, for the English & Classics students I did not meet. It made me ache for something I threw away cavalierly and now can never have.
ETA:
Okay.
I loved the literary allusions. I found the characters, for the most part, quite believable- and the unbelievable ones were Myth Incarnate, so that was wonderful. The pacing was uneven and
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I'd have been just as happy had the last three years been as leisurely told as the first one. I'm familiar with the legend, and loved this treatment of it. Did I mention the rich literary trove this story is? "O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!"But.
The thing that I hated about this book is that it caused me no small measure of bitter regret. I try to never indulge in regret. I do not repine. My motto as regards regrets, like Lazarus Long's, has long been "When the ship lifts, all bills are paid." And this book, from the first page through the last, made me so sad for the chances I did not take, for the scholarship I scorned, for the English & Classics students I did not meet. It made me ache for something I threw away cavalierly and now can never have.
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LibraryThing member lunaverse
This is a difficult book for me to review, because it is hard for me to decide my opinion on it. It came highly recommended, and is based on fairy folklore, which I love. But I think this book fits certain tastes that are not mine, and I had certain expectations which were not met.
This is more a
Much of the book centered around thoughts and conversations about literature: Shakespeare, Pope, Chaucer, Dante, Homer, Keats, Swift, Austin, plus a much longer list of names I've never heard of. These are, for the most part, works I am unfamiliar with, that were spoken of by characters who had deep understandings of the subject matter. Most of the time I felt like a lot of important or clever or insightful or funny things were going on, and I was missing all the in-jokes. Now and then, when I was able to catch grasp of a full conversation or situation, I laughed out loud, or eagerly anticipated the next page -- but for the most part, I was confused. It would be sort of like a non-geek or time traveler trying to read something like Ready Player One, or just the internet in general.
The bits of magic and mystery were slowly eked out, just enough (barely) to keep me interested to the end. The characters were certainly interesting and likable. There were pages with quotes so insightful that I wanted to underline or dog-ear the page, but it was a borrowed copy, so I couldn't.
To sum up, I sort of feel like I did at the end of reading Ulysses (though not quite as strongly in any sense). I'm completely unsure whether I liked it. I would only recommend it to someone who is either patient, or loves classic and romantic literature. For the most part, it helps me conclude I will always have a hard time appreciating literary novels.
This is more a
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work of literature as it is fantasy or magical. Anyone with more of a literary bent than I would be able to appreciate it better. It was full of nicely descriptive writing and academic intellectual navel-gazing surrounding a slow plot that seemed like it was packing for a drive across the country, only to limp across the yard very, very slowly. Much of the book centered around thoughts and conversations about literature: Shakespeare, Pope, Chaucer, Dante, Homer, Keats, Swift, Austin, plus a much longer list of names I've never heard of. These are, for the most part, works I am unfamiliar with, that were spoken of by characters who had deep understandings of the subject matter. Most of the time I felt like a lot of important or clever or insightful or funny things were going on, and I was missing all the in-jokes. Now and then, when I was able to catch grasp of a full conversation or situation, I laughed out loud, or eagerly anticipated the next page -- but for the most part, I was confused. It would be sort of like a non-geek or time traveler trying to read something like Ready Player One, or just the internet in general.
The bits of magic and mystery were slowly eked out, just enough (barely) to keep me interested to the end. The characters were certainly interesting and likable. There were pages with quotes so insightful that I wanted to underline or dog-ear the page, but it was a borrowed copy, so I couldn't.
To sum up, I sort of feel like I did at the end of reading Ulysses (though not quite as strongly in any sense). I'm completely unsure whether I liked it. I would only recommend it to someone who is either patient, or loves classic and romantic literature. For the most part, it helps me conclude I will always have a hard time appreciating literary novels.
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LibraryThing member ntempest
Reading this a good fifteen years after it was released, it strikes me how much books have changed. This has beautiful slow, steady pacing that really builds the story, and the fairy tale quality is wonderfully managed. I doubt it would get published today, as it would be judged as too slow, but
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it's still a favorite of many and getting new readers each year. Shows you how off judgments can be some days. I'd recommend it, particularly for precocious teens, but definitely for adults too. Show Less
LibraryThing member dragonimp
This book offers a fun trip into college/university life in the 1970s as well as a nice urban fantasy based on the Child ballad by the same name. The main character, Janet, seems a little too well versed in classical literature, but it serves the story and is not unrealistic. Most of the book feels
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like setup and the climax feels a bit rushed, but since my attention was more on the characters than the resolution the pace didn't bother me. Show Less
LibraryThing member TadAD
A beautifully paced retelling of the Tam Lin fairy tale until the slightly rushed ending. Worth the read.
LibraryThing member arthos
It began strong - a protagonist with the same taste in books as I have, a ghost that throws books out of windows, and unstable classics majors, what more could you want? It ended up being awfully long on the English literature lessons and awfully short on the magic, both literally and
This is about the only book written in the third person that I think would have been better in the first person. I kept losing track of the point-of-view character when more than one character was around.
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metaphorically, but even so, it was a good read. It's best taken as a sketch of life as a serious English major at a liberal arts school in the early 70's, juggling studies with relationships with boys that are emotionally curiously detached, with something supernatural lurking in the background, but rarely coming to the fore.This is about the only book written in the third person that I think would have been better in the first person. I kept losing track of the point-of-view character when more than one character was around.
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LibraryThing member arianaderalte
I think I went into this book with expectations that were too high. I was expecting a lot more fantasy and a lot less minutiae, and came away fairly disappointed by the whole experience. I think if I'd gone in expecting a story about what it's like to be an English major and a female student in a
The writing was excellent, and a I have a lot more appreciation for various writers who were mentioned in the story now. I felt it could have been balanced a bit more since the whole first half of the book is her first year, while the next three years are crammed into the second half, and then the supernatural bits are crammed into the end. A little more reaction to the whole reveal would have been nice as well.
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small college in the 1970s, with a bit of supernatural stuff thrown in as an afterthought, I'd have been a lot happier. At least I was impressed by how thoroughly you experienced Janet's college years.The writing was excellent, and a I have a lot more appreciation for various writers who were mentioned in the story now. I felt it could have been balanced a bit more since the whole first half of the book is her first year, while the next three years are crammed into the second half, and then the supernatural bits are crammed into the end. A little more reaction to the whole reveal would have been nice as well.
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LibraryThing member glitrbug
I liked the book better after I finished it and thought about it awhile. I remember first love as running much hotter. LOL The characters & I were freshman in 1972 in the same part of the US. No one I knew spoke or acted like this so the book took some getting used to.
LibraryThing member wildlinedesign
I was unexpectedly surprised by this book - the cover almost put me off - but the story was rich and the characters believable and varied, and even knowing the ballad, I was tensely and voraciously reading to the end. Very good.
Awards
Mythopoeic Awards (Finalist — Adult Literature — 1992)
Minnesota Book Awards (Finalist — 1992)
Language
Original publication date
1991
Physical description
480 p.; 6.7 inches
ISBN
0812544501 / 9780812544503
DDC/MDS
| Fic SF Dean |