Witches on the Road Tonight, (Pages 1-63)

This book interested me because of the subject matter; being about witches (and this being October – Happy Halloween!), and described as being a fresh treatment of the subject, it intrigued me.  What I was not prepared for was the highly developed stylistic expertise it displays.  It is very intelligent writing without being the least pedantic or professorial. Very artistic without being pretentious or vague.  In short, precisely what I look for in a good writer. 

Ms. Holman doesn’t leap right into the story at the beginning, preferring to hint at things to come with a rather tangential (or so it appears at this point) sub-plot at the outset.  We are even left to guess and infer gender and sexual preference of characters referred to.  All this will become clear in due time, we can assume, as the plot develops.  Once the meat of the plot is begun, however, a linear momentum is established which takes us some way down an understatedly disturbing path. 

The characters are engagingly complex, helping the reader to imagine them as real people with comparatively little development.  I’m always impressed with writing that manages to do this, and the present book displays the talent particularly well.  Each moment in the action is adequately described without become tedious, while a subtle dark cast colors the sequence of events in just the right tone.  There is just enough “spookiness” here to whet our appetite for more.   

The technical aspects of the prose are impressive but not gaudy.  A representative example of the author’s touch with the simile: “Secrets are always hardest at the beginning.  After a while they settle in, like the cavities in your teeth, and you only think about them when they hurt.”  At the same time, sentences are often economically short, the dialog realistically terse.  “Taking his pouch of tobacco and his papers from his satchel, he rolls himself a cigarette.  He is too lost for comfort.  ‘Like one?” he asks.  Cora shakes her head.”  (This “present tense” style of writing is well-crafted, not distracting in the least.)

 

Descriptive passages of settings show the same deftness of presentation, not requiring long-winded exposition.  When we reach the isolated, dilapidated homestead in the wooded mountains we get a sense of being in the middle of nowhere, and a sense of how rundown and ancient the buildings are.  We feel what the city-bred characters must feel as they find themselves drawn deeper into the wilds.  And the idea of there being witches involved is brought to light gradually, so that the suspension of belief is coaxed from us by degrees.  Thus far, very satisfying!


Next segment, pages 64-122 (up to Wallis / Panther Gap / 1980)