The Wind in His Heart by Charles de Lint
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Bookshelves: urban-fantasy, made-me-homesick, mysticism, native-american-lore, fantasy, coming-of-age, multiple-povs, religion-sort-of, magic, supernatural
The fates of several very different people meet when a troubled teenager with an attitude is dumped on the rez from her father’s car, and a desert rat steps in to help against his better judgment, as the young girl makes a play for money by trying to expose the desert rat’s hidden identity. A blogger/journalist shows up right in time to be caught up in the showdown between the modern and the traditionalist members of the tribe and the fallout from the trophy-hunt killing of a shapeshifter.
This is a suck-you-right-in tale, rural-fantasy rather than urban-fantasy because of the setting. The characters are compelling, the plot rich, with lots of interwoven threads.
My only complaint was that throughout the teaching moments, when the tribal elders or the shaman would talk about principles of Native belief, the younger tribe members never knew what they were talking about, didn’t understand, had to have it explained again. If they grew up as traditionalist tribal members, they’d surely had exposure to and grasp of the spiritual and metaphysical aspects of the Red Road…wouldn’t they? They all acted as if they’d never heard of shapeshifting or sympathetic magic or spirit animals or dreamwalking. I surmise it was the author’s way to incorporate exposition, but it left me feeling like these people just weren’t all that bright. I found it awkward.
That aside, though, very good read. The real jewel here is the setting, a fictional Native reservation in Arizona, reminiscent of Chelly Canyon. Under de Lint’s pen, the Painted Lands come alive in all the stunning glory that is the desert, and made me incredibly homesick for my own desert home.
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99 Monkeys 