The Land of Laughs

After I read and loved The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll in January, Chris said I had to read The Land of Laughs next because it is his favorite Carroll. It took me a couple of months to buy it and a couple more to get to reading it (I finished it at the end of August) and now it's taken me a couple of months to get around to reviewing it. Normally this would be an issue because I have a very short book memory but not in this case because I literally haven't stopped thinking about it since the summer.

faux cover by Charles Vess

The Land of Laughs is a children's book by author Marshall France and it is Thomas Abbey's favorite book. Abbey, son of a movie star, is obsessed with the late France and his books and eventually decides to visit France's hometown of Galen, Missouri where his daughter still lives in order to research a biography he would like to write about France. What he finds in Galen boggles the mind and blurs the lines between fiction and reality.

It has been three months since I finished this book but I can't stop thinking about it and I already want to read it again. I can't explain exactly why I loved this book so much because it's really rather strange and sometimes violent and disturbing and the relationships are very dysfunctional and it's about books that I can never read. But it's also about the magic that is in the best stories and what would happen if that magic escaped and took form and that's pretty awesome if frightening.

Now that I've read Carroll's first and last (for now) books, I have to figure out which of his middle books to explore. Neil Gaiman recommends all of them so I guess I'll just grab whichever one I see next! I have a feeling that I'll love it.

Drawing out the goodbye,
K

Long-Awaited Reads Month: The Ghost in Love

I believe that this book, The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll, made it on to my TBR years ago after a rave review from Lena (who I don't believe is blogging anywhere at the moment). I guess I never picked it up in the interim because I had forgotten exactly what it was about. It turns out that it's about many things and it's hard to describe but believe me when I say that its uniqueness makes it fresh and thought-provoking and beautiful, all in an unusual way -- because this is definitely a strange book and it's not ashamed to be that at all.

This story has a ghost and the man whose ghost she is, and a dog (of sorts), and an ex-girlfriend and a complete stranger, and angels and many other characters that come together in an ensemble that causes one to reflect on the tenuous border between life and death, the essence of each of our beings and the things that allow us to love each other past all our faults and flaws.

I'm very excited to explore more of Jonathan Carroll's work and, as Chris has highly recommended The Land of Laughs, it will be my next read of his -- and I promise that it won't take me years to get to it.

With love and ghosts,
K