Memory and Dream

A soulful journey into art, friendship, and love, with dream sequences and flashbacks, this novel is demanding for the listener as well as the narrator. Kate Reading tackles the shifting story and lyrical prose with a tenderness that brings the characters to life. Alternating between male and female voices, she captures the intricate history of a set of friends involved in the world of painting and writing. Further, she makes believable the ghost story elements in the many flashback scenes involving the various characters. The stories are all linked, and each one is given a distinctive voice through the modulating tones of Reading's narration. M.R. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

October 3, 1994
The Otherworld tends to lurk just out of sight in DeLint's (Moonheart; Spiritwalk) works, waiting for some chink to appear in the facade of his characters' lives and allow its spirits entry. This latest work is no exception; here fantastic creatures gain access to the bohemian village of Newford through the work of Isabelle, a talented young painter. Apprenticing herself to the troll-like master painter Rushkin, Isabelle learns to paint amazing creatures-creations that subsequently take on a (possibly evil) life of their own. When circumstances cause a friend's message to reach out to her from beyond the grave, Isabelle must confront her own delusional revisionist history and decide if she has the strength to use her art, and the courage to do what she must. While Isabelle's delusions and the book's implication that artists are superior beings become somewhat repetitious, DeLint is otherwise in top form here. His multi-voiced, time-shifting narrative (the story spans 20 years) beautifully evokes a sense of creative community, making it almost possible to believe that the rarified aesthetic atmosphere might well be capable of conjuring up a spirit or two.