By Charles de Lint

(Occasionally I'm going to bring back a book I think may have been overlooked and give you the opportunity to hunt it down if you missed it. Maybe you'll have to find it on the Web, or a Half Price Bookstore. Maybe you'll have to borrow it from a friend. Either way, I hope you'll enjoy these steps backward in time.)

What would you do if you woke up and you weren't you? Your memories are your own, but the body you're wearing isn't. The face in the mirror, that of a stranger. And the apartment is no place you've ever been.

In Charles de Lint's absolutely smashing novel, Max Trader awakens to find that he is no longer wearing his body. After the initial shock, his frantic search yields this fact—he is now one Johnny Devlin. Except he has never even heard of this Devlin character. Max is a luthier, a guitar-maker of some renown, having studied under the legendary Janossy. When Max looks down, now, he does not see the calloused hands of a luthier and stringed instrument player, his hands. His new face is handsome enough, in a roguish sort of way, but he does not wear it comfortably.

This impossible occurrence is almost too much, but Max soon realizes that there is only one thing he can do—go to his apartment and see who greets him at the door. The one-two combination is complete when Devlin, now wearing Max Trader's body, makes it clear that he's not at all interested in giving it back. In fact, Devlin implies that all of Max's life suits him just fine. Evicted from Devlin's apartment, and his own life, Max suddenly joins the ranks of the homeless.

From this superbly drawn beginning, Charles de Lint's urban fantasy sings with allegory and epic poetry, pitting a group of real and engaging characters against one of those magical folds we never notice in the fabric of our world. It may not be strictly horror, but the undertones are decidedly dark.

De Lint's own creation, the city of Newford—so clearly outlined in earlier novels and collections such as DREAMS UNDERFOOT—is populated by a repertory company of characters you can't help but like. There's Nia, Max's teenage neighbor, who is the first to see and believe the strange fate that has befallen him. Nia's mom, Lisa, whose tentative steps toward happiness and self-discovery inadvertently cause Nia to run away. Tanya, the former low-budget actress whose bad luck with relationships doubled the day she took up with the rogue, Devlin. Zeffy, Tanya's musician roommate, who hates Devlin for what he's done to her friend, but who suddenly finds herself attracted to him despite the weirdness he's selling. Bones, the colorful fortune-teller who seems to know what happened to Max and what to do about it. And Buddy, the stray dog Max befriends on his first day as a homeless man, when no one else will believe or help him.

Charles de Lint (MOONHEART, GREENMANTLE, MEMORY AND DREAM, THE ONION GIRL, etc.) employs his considerable storytelling talent to teach a lesson about living our lives to the fullest, and about knowing who we are—or, better yet, who we should be. This is a novel which quietly speaks to us about happiness and fulfillment, about true friendship and loyalty, while again pointing out the magic that licks at the boundaries of our everyday world like a subtle tide.

Max Trader and Johnny Devlin are both people we believe, reacting to events neither we nor they can possibly understand. In bringing them and their symbolic plight to our attention, de Lint has once again boldly meshed Native American themes and mythologies with a vague-but-present Celtic atmosphere.

Charles de Lint's TRADER brings magic realism to places we know and proves that nothing of true value can be taken from us without our tacit agreement.