This is a cerebral work, and Lock is a heady writer, yet he evokes a deeply sensual world in which the smell of cinnamon all but sings in the breeze and the sea beckons like a lover... Shadowplay is informed by so many stories... that I initially feared I’d need to haul out my old Bullfinch’s Mythology and a dozen other reference works. But I didn’t. The novel stands on its own and does its tricky work unaided, like the afterlife of a dream. I suspect Lock is less interested in the reader catching everything than in catching the reader. He does.
Read the rest here: http://www.brooklynrail.org/2010/02/books/tokens-feb-10
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