I know, it's a book about a werewolf. Just forget everything you've ever read about them and read this book as if the idea were a whole new thing. That's what magical realism is about, right? Jump in and go with it and you're in for a touching and exciting story.
The werewolf in the story is an educated young woman working for a travel agency and leading a very recluse life. Naturally. Details are eventually revealed about how and why she's like this, and how she's learned to deal with it and accept it. It's just that she's in a hopeless sort of situation -- no sorts of dreams everyone else lives with. She meets a man, who loves her but doesn't believe her, and the story goes on from there.
Again, Danvers' imagery is powerful... you feel as if -you- are in the wolf's body, looking out the barred window and wanting to run free. You smell the coffee that wakes Alice after an episode. I could almost feel my fingers on the old letters sent by her great-aunt.
While Alice is keeping the world away from her because of who she believes she is, we're also learning a lot about people and intimacy and how close we let people get to us. How much can we really know? Would we believe it if we did know? How would it change things? Does it matter if someone had a really good reason for doing something completely awful?
Will the solitary werewolf woman, happy in her stable and predictable life, make changes, fall in love and move into chaos? Can a biologist and college professor -believe- that anyone could really be a werewolf? Would he love someone who thought she was?
All belief in anything is suspended and when the story takes some unexpected turns it becomes quite suspenseful. You don't always know what's going to happen at the end, even when you think you do. The characters are well fleshed out and everything they do makes sense with what we know about them.
I finished the book and immediately wanted to read it again. Then I vowed to take a trip to Algonquin Park to hear real wolves singing.
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