Walking the Wall

I have been waiting for Solstice Wood to come out in paperback for awhile now and was thrilled to see it at Barnes & Nobles the other day. It was worth the wait and lived up to Patricia McKillip’s incredible writing reputation. There are two writers that I will read anything they wrote simple because they wrote them–Charles de Lint, and Patricia McKillip. I think that McKillip is one of the most gorgeous writers I have ever read, her use of language, imagery, and symbols makes every book a delight. Solstice Wood was a little different than most of her pieces, being set in the more modern world, but the fey were still there in all their mystery. This is a book about binding and unravelings, about the power of story to lock our minds down or open them up, about the danger of thinking we know the truth about something and so going stagnant instead of continuing to live and explore and learn.

"What did you see in the wood?"
"Trees," I said. "Mostly." The wood that humans saw held a lot of words. But what they didn’t see was an entire, ancient realm. Oh, they knew a few words, enough to say in their old tales and songs that it was there. But they had shut their eyes long ago; they didn’t see anymore what was real. Now they only saw the words for it.