This week, I had the immense pleasure of attending a reading given by my dear friend Sion Dayson following the release of her début novel, As a River (which you should all go read immediately). Before beginning to read, she spoke about her inspiration, how she is driven, first and foremost, not by plot or setting or even character, but by words and sentences, by their cadence. Like poetry, she strings together first the music of the words; the story comes next.
I found a similar love of language pervaded Witches on the Road Tonight, albeit in a slightly different way. Here, it was an ambiance that was highlighted, a bridge between reality and myth, between what the characters wanted to believe and what they knew to be true. The sentences, the rhythm, the magic, drew me through it; the characters, with their odd, singular traits, threw all clichés to the wind.
The experience of reading the book very nearly made up for the fact that the ending felt haphazard; I closed the book without fully understanding the story the author was trying to convey. And after searching the Internet to see what I missed, I found I wasn’t alone. Sheri Holman relied on style over substance, but her style is so very exquisite that I can still recommend this book wholeheartedly: for its sentences, for its setting, for its intricate juggling of myth and truth.