~ buy this book ~
I first read Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude in college. Years later, what’s stayed with me is a fascination with magical realism and one story about Márquez. When he finished One Hundred Years, his wife Mercedes pawned her hair dryer and the electric heater in order to pay for postage to mail it to a publisher. Even then, they had to mail it in two parts because they didn’t have enough postage!
So what is “magical realism”? A story with fantastic elements – told as if those elements were absolutely normal. (I should put in a note here: I’m a professor of Shakespeare, who did pretty well on the magical realism front himself in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; still, I’m no expert on the genre.) Romance fiction mostly doesn’t dabble in magical realism. Sure, we have oodles of paranormal novels, but I would say that the fantastic elements are generally highlighted – not treated as everyday events. And, crucially, genre novels may be beautifully written, but they have a big job to do. They generally don’t take the time to talk of small things: that’s one of literary fiction’s tasks.
This essay is on a book that (to me) bridges genres: magical realism and romance. Garden Spells is a book of literary fiction, using magical realism, and containing a romance. When I finished it, I thought it was a romance. When I started it, I thought it was literary fiction/magical realism.
It’s this kind of language that pushes it out of the genre (this is from the beginning):
What she dreamed of was always the same. Long roads like snakes with no tails. Sleeping in the car at night while her mother met men in bars and honky-tonks. Being a lookout while her mother stole shampoo and deodorant and lipstick and sometimes a candy bar for Claire at the Shop-and-Gos around the Midwest.
Now here’s the kind of writing that makes it a romance (this is from the end):
She felt it again, more this time, and her heart beat faster and faster. Henry’s hands went to her hair. She’d kissed many men who wanted her, but it had been a long time since she’d kissed one who loved her. She’d forgotten. She’d forgotten that love made anything possible.
What do you think? And let me say first that whatever genre it is, this is an enormously enjoyable book, and I highly recommend it!
8 Comments
Hi,
It sounds like my kind of book. Thank you for your recommendation.
I am so glad that you recommended this book. I read it when if first came out at barnes and noble. I loved it, it was a very refreshing book. I can’t wait to see with what she comes out with next.
Alex,
I think she has another book out — or soon to be out? I definitely mean to buy it!
Eloisa
Perfect timing! I just FINALLY read Garden Spells yesterday. I bought it when it first came out but it’s been buried in my TBR pile. I absolutely loved this book and I’ve already had copies sent to my daughter and my son’s girlfriend. I just ordered Sarah Addison Allen’s second book, too.
Even though I was a gradual convert to paranormal romances, I’ve loved books that featured psychic themes for a long time. Linda Howard and Iris Johansen come to mind, and I think Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle and Nora Roberts wrote a couple books along those lines, too.
I can’t remember who wrote a book based in the real town of Lily Dale, where all the residents are supposed to be psychic, but I remember that it fascinated me. And it seems that a lot of books set in Scotland feature characters with “the sight.”
Great topic!
What a great review! Barbara Bretton is one of those writers who does many kinds of books incredibly well. I’ve been reading Bretton since her Harlequin American Romance days. Just Desserts, her other 2008 book, was also a winner, a surprising secret baby book that is a kind of hybrid of romance and women’s fiction. I even like her time travel books. And Sentimental Journey, the WW II romance she wrote for Harlequin’s Century of Romance celebration is one of my all-time favorites.
I haven’t read this one yet, but I will. I never miss a Bretton book.
I adored “Garden Spells” and was equally enchanted by Allen’s newest book “Sugar Queen”. They are absolutely delightful!
3ib9rsh4p5koyw4v
Absolutely loved it.