The Ocean at the End of the Lane . . . and at the Heart of Everything

If only . . . someone had given me the text of this book and said "Here is a lapidary fable, not a magnum opus, but so much more than a jeu d'esprit, by an author you are very conversant with and who has meant a lot to you. Read it, live with it a while, and consider whose it might be." After quickly dismissing A. S. Byatt on the grounds of tone and Rushdie on syntax, I would have become permanently paralyzed, unable to decide whether it was Neil Gaiman or Stephen King. This dark and glowing center of universes has been visited by both of them, and they both speak so powerfully of that which is both meltingly elegiac and eternally present. The tenderness says "Neil," but Uncle Stevie no longer writes only with the driving vigor of his early work, and the love that fuels and radiates from this story could come from either of them.

It's quite remarkable, and I am sure I will forever be feeling the transformative effects of the crystal splinter it's left in my heart.