Muse and Reverie: A Newford Collection

by Charles de Lint

Overview

From the master of contemporary urban fantasy, a new collection of "Newford" stories

The city of Newford could be any city in North America, bursting with music, commerce, art, love, hate, and, of course magic. Magic in the sidewalk cracks, myth at the foundations of its great buildings, enchantment in the spaces between its people.

In novels like Moonheart, Forests of the Heart, The Onion Girl, and The Mystery of Grace, and in a series of story collections, urban fantasy master Charles de Lint has explored that magic and those spaces, bringing to life a tapestry of people from all walks of life, each looking for a spark of the miraculous to shape their lives and transform their fate.

In Muse and Reverie, the fifth of the story collections, we reencounter old friends such as Jilly, Sophie, and the Crow Girls. We breathe in intimations of the world beyond death, and of magic beyond time. Longtime readers and newcomers alike will find themselves under Charles de Lint's unique spell.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429973656
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/26/2024
Series:	Newford Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	351
Sales rank:	557,782
File size:	541 KB

About the Author

    Tim Miller is an internationally acclaimed performance artist and gay rights activist. He is the author of the books Body Blows and Shirts & Skin and his performance texts have appeared in the play collections O Solo Homo and Sharing the Delirium. He teaches performance at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Theater and is cofounder of Performance Space 122 in New York City and Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, California.
    Glen Johnson is professor of English and media studies at the Catholic University of America.

Read an Excerpt

    For a quarter century, Tim Miller has worked at the intersection of performance, politics, and identity, using his personal experiences to create entertaining but pointed explorations of life as a gay American man—from the perils and joys of sex and relationships to the struggles of political disenfranchisement and artistic censorship. This intimate autobiographical collage of Miller's professional and personal life reveals one of the celebrated creators of a crucial contemporary art form and a tireless advocate for the American dream of political equality for all citizens.
    Here we have the most complete Miller yet—a raucous collection of his performance scripts, essays, interviews, journal entries, and photographs, as well as his most recent stage piece Us. This volume brings together the personal, communal, and national political strands that interweave through his work from its beginnings and ultimately define Miller's place as a contemporary artist, activist, and gay man.

Table of Contents

"Performance artist Tim Miller has been a pioneering and inspiring figure for twenty-five years. Taking us into the heart of his very original work, 1001 Beds shows Miller as an engaged and effective storyteller and provocateur. It will attract readers from a variety of constituencies and be wonderful for classes."—Lynn C. Miller, editor of Voices Made Flesh

"Tim Miller has made a career not only of making the personal political, but more important, of making the political personal. As a result, 1001 Beds is not just a document of life as a performance artist, but a history of performance art; it is not just the story of a gay man, but an account of how being gay has changed."—David Bergman, series editor

Editorial Reviews

This collection of 13 stories is the fifth set in Newford, de Lint's city of artists, musicians and magic, and the first since 2002's Tapping the Dream Tree. Interspersing time travel (“Riding Shotgun,” “That Was Radio Clash”) and period pieces (“The Hour Before Dawn”) with tales of Native American and Celtic magic (“A Crow Girls' Christmas,” “Da Slockit Light”), de Lint creates an entirely organic mythology that seems as real as the folklore from which it draws. From flighty yet powerful avatars to fiendish goblins, the characters are complex and clever, and even the most fantastical still has a sense of humanity. The endings often contain twists worthy of O. Henry. These clever, frightening, wise and entertaining stories are an excellent introduction to de Lint's writing and imagination, and will also provide longtime fans a welcome return to Newford. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly