Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2003 13:10:39 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Woo woo ! ! Limekiller !
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

>From The Washington Post Bookworld, 7 December, Michael Dirda's column, =
the penultimate book reviewed:

No holiday would be complete without a good collection of stories, =
preferably spooky or supernatural. This year try Limekiller, by Avram =
Davidson, edited by Grania Davis and Henry Wessells (Old Earth, $30). Set =
in the imaginary British Hidalgo (loosely based on Belize), these pages =
chronicle strange events in the life of a Canadian adventurer in paradise, =
Jack Limekiller. As Lucius Shepard notes in his affectionate introduction, =
Davidson wasn't interested in well-made plots but in atmosphere. In =
British Hidalgo he creates a lush and mysterious place, "complete with =
dialects, recipes, shanties, magic, duppies, pirates, drunkards, tapirs, =
manatees, pretty girls, a hero or two, and, of course, ghosts."

What I myself love most about Davidson is his prose, conversational, =
digressive, stippled with archaisms and odd learning. Yet this restless =
voice -- a style with a kind of attention deficit disorder -- can also =
mimic every sort of speech. In "Bloody Man," for instance, Davidson =
dazzles by offering a half-dozen different registers of English, from the =
high-tone British university diction of an archbishop to the Caribbean =
inflected slang of the black Baymen -- and he gets them all down perfectly =
in a strange tale about a wounded ghost in need of benediction. There are =
five other stories here, equally idiosyncratic and unforgettable, =
including the spooky, wonderfully titled "Manatee Gal, Won't You Come Out =
Tonight?"

 . . . . . . . . .

See y'all at Philcon . . .

mjw