Card: Magic Street (2006)

I listened to the unabridged version of Orson Scott Card‘s Magic Street that I borrowed from the local public library. It was read superbly by Mirron E. Willis. He really got into each character’s mind and managed to sound as lots of individuals and all authentic. The question of authenticity came up in me all the time as I was listening. The story is set in an African-American neighborhood of Los Angeles, all the characters are black and the actor who read the story to me was too. The book is full of words and elements of that culture. I kept asking myself: was this book really written by a white guy who lives on the East Coast? I felt incredulous. As I learned he frequently consulted a Roland Bernard Brown, black friend of his, but still: the lingering feeling that a ghost written this for him couldn’t leave me.

Nevertheless who wrote it, I enjoyed the book. The two spaces, Middles class neighborhood with typical characters and fairyland with its fairies and overlord balanced each other well enough for my taste. The Magical and the Realism was pleasantly combined with Shakespeare references and a coming of age story. Mack Street, the unlikely hero–a boy who was born an hour after conceived with a husband’s help and then taken away by a mysterious bag man–liberates the queen of the fairies with the help of his friends. As he stores all the positive energies from the dreams of almost everybody of the neighborhood he enjoys the support of all of them. I won’t give away more from the story, because the essence of this modern fairy tale is in its unfolding.

I do want to jot down the single sentence that remained with me beyond the book: “Wishes are the true elements underlying the universe.” This makes perfect sense within the context of the book, where it has a particular meaning, because wishes are stored (and often distorted) in a special way. But what can it mean to somebody who didn’t read the book?