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The Mystery of Grace
After turning in my comps portfolio on Monday, as a reward I went to Prairie Lights to check if there were any new books by any of my favorite authors out. As it turns out, the universe clearly knew that I was in need of reward, because on the New Books table I found The Mystery of Grace, the first non-YA book in three years by my favorite author EVAR, Charles de Lint. It's not part of my favorite of his series - the Newford books - but is nevertheless one of his best, if not his best.
I didn't really have a chance to read it until today, and probably should have spent those two hours working on comps prep since I've spent the last two days running around doing stuff that was necessary and urgent but completely unrelated to comps, but I felt I needed that couple of hours of break from the comps grind. As usual, I loved it, though I'm still not entirely sure what I think of it. In some ways it's very much standard de Lint, and in some ways it's very, very different from anything else of his I've read; I don't know how to articulate those differences, though. I want to say it's darker or more depressing, but that's not it (because it's really no darker or more depressing than his other books). Maybe it's just that because of the subject matter, it feels like it should be?
It's about Altagracia "Grace" Quintero, a tattooed Latina into rockabilly music and restoring classic cars. More accurately, it's about her afterlife; shot in a robbery gone awry, she wakes up in what seems to be her own apartment. Only she discovers that she's actually dead, and trapped in a world about six blocks square surrounding her apartment building, the Alverson Arms. It turns out that everyone who dies within that six block area in the real world ends up there, so it ends up as a sort of way station for the dead, with a tidy little community of the formerly living. The world of the Arms is very much Charles de Lint does Silent Hill - sans monsters, obviously (or, uh, mostly so), but unreal and muted, surrounded by mist, and constantly changing as new people die and bring versions of the places they died back to the other side with them. (Hopefully the SH reference will get folks like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
enkiae to read this, since it's the sort of book I think he'd totally like.) Grace meets several of the other dead folks and soon befriends many of them, and one of the two major plot threads is Grace and her fellow deceased exploring the other world and figuring out why it's there and who or what is responsible for it.
Grace soon discovers something many of the deceased know: there is one way to go back to the world of the living, which is to return to the place of your death at moonrise on Halloween or May Eve. No one from your previous life can recognize you, but you can stay on the other side as a regular live person until sunrise the next morning, at which time you'll return to the dead world of the Alverson Arms. On her first sojourn back, Grace meets John, a melancholic but likable artist with whom she clicks immediately. And the story seems like it's becoming the story of Grace and John's romance, which of course has some kinks in that she's dead and they can only be together for two days a year, but is nevertheless ridiculously convincing and sweet. About 2/3 of the way through the book, though, you realize that this is called The Mystery of Grace (which of course has multiple levels of meaning) for a reason. This is ultimately not Grace and John's story, but Grace's story, a story about holding on and letting go and knowing when to do which.
It's pretty short - 269 pages - so it's actually perfect as a nice, brief treat (even though I did kind of wish it was longer, just because I wanted a little more time with the characters). I'm not sure it's my favorite de Lint book, but it might be - my previous favorite was Forests of the Heart, and I'm not entirely sure The Mystery of Grace beats that out, but it's certainly right u there with it. I see a lot of reviews complaining about the final third of the book, which admittedly goes in a direction which I, at least, wasn't expecting, but IMO it's a direction that totally works and makes for a truly affecting (if not entirely satisfying) ending.
Also today I totally discovered that one of my fellow grad students is also a huge de Lint fan, which was kind of awesome. Yay for more exposure for him, because he's a great, great writer; y'all should read him if you get a chance!
I didn't really have a chance to read it until today, and probably should have spent those two hours working on comps prep since I've spent the last two days running around doing stuff that was necessary and urgent but completely unrelated to comps, but I felt I needed that couple of hours of break from the comps grind. As usual, I loved it, though I'm still not entirely sure what I think of it. In some ways it's very much standard de Lint, and in some ways it's very, very different from anything else of his I've read; I don't know how to articulate those differences, though. I want to say it's darker or more depressing, but that's not it (because it's really no darker or more depressing than his other books). Maybe it's just that because of the subject matter, it feels like it should be?
It's about Altagracia "Grace" Quintero, a tattooed Latina into rockabilly music and restoring classic cars. More accurately, it's about her afterlife; shot in a robbery gone awry, she wakes up in what seems to be her own apartment. Only she discovers that she's actually dead, and trapped in a world about six blocks square surrounding her apartment building, the Alverson Arms. It turns out that everyone who dies within that six block area in the real world ends up there, so it ends up as a sort of way station for the dead, with a tidy little community of the formerly living. The world of the Arms is very much Charles de Lint does Silent Hill - sans monsters, obviously (or, uh, mostly so), but unreal and muted, surrounded by mist, and constantly changing as new people die and bring versions of the places they died back to the other side with them. (Hopefully the SH reference will get folks like
enkiae to read this, since it's the sort of book I think he'd totally like.) Grace meets several of the other dead folks and soon befriends many of them, and one of the two major plot threads is Grace and her fellow deceased exploring the other world and figuring out why it's there and who or what is responsible for it.Grace soon discovers something many of the deceased know: there is one way to go back to the world of the living, which is to return to the place of your death at moonrise on Halloween or May Eve. No one from your previous life can recognize you, but you can stay on the other side as a regular live person until sunrise the next morning, at which time you'll return to the dead world of the Alverson Arms. On her first sojourn back, Grace meets John, a melancholic but likable artist with whom she clicks immediately. And the story seems like it's becoming the story of Grace and John's romance, which of course has some kinks in that she's dead and they can only be together for two days a year, but is nevertheless ridiculously convincing and sweet. About 2/3 of the way through the book, though, you realize that this is called The Mystery of Grace (which of course has multiple levels of meaning) for a reason. This is ultimately not Grace and John's story, but Grace's story, a story about holding on and letting go and knowing when to do which.
It's pretty short - 269 pages - so it's actually perfect as a nice, brief treat (even though I did kind of wish it was longer, just because I wanted a little more time with the characters). I'm not sure it's my favorite de Lint book, but it might be - my previous favorite was Forests of the Heart, and I'm not entirely sure The Mystery of Grace beats that out, but it's certainly right u there with it. I see a lot of reviews complaining about the final third of the book, which admittedly goes in a direction which I, at least, wasn't expecting, but IMO it's a direction that totally works and makes for a truly affecting (if not entirely satisfying) ending.
Also today I totally discovered that one of my fellow grad students is also a huge de Lint fan, which was kind of awesome. Yay for more exposure for him, because he's a great, great writer; y'all should read him if you get a chance!