Interesting base for the storyline: A young boy selects a special book from his father’s cache by a little known author and it turns out to be also a favorite author of a beautiful young blind woman with whom the boy forms a close relationship. The boy is emotionally taken with the woman and reads to her daily for several years until the woman, seeing the potential problems as the boy reaches his mid-teens, ends the relationship. But the book, The Shadow of the Wind is the prize and the mystery of the story as a mysterious faceless man is determined to possess the book.
Good story, easy reading, enough conflict and promise of more. The writing is not experimental but rather a bit dated it would seem, the narrative following traditional form with all the elements of fictional storytelling closely followed. Not that this is a bad thing; it is different in its own way–after reading Burgess, O’Brien, and McCarthy just prior.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology