Chris Rose gifted this yesterday and I post it with trepidation. This book has lain dormant on Amazon for almost eight years, but he may have given it the kiss of life!
![Ana Grigoriu gifted me this image](https://philipparees.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/product-placement.jpg?w=297&h=300)
![??????????????????????](https://philipparees.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/gulls-in-flight-rescaled-640x494-2.jpg?w=300&h=231)
Stephanie, the book’s MC, who wakes “to a smouldering afternoon pregnant with thunder”, via pregnancy both of the belly and naivety, comes full circle – and in fact recalls a literary character of my own creation; if only she could put brakes on the rumbling rails of life!
But, for me, the `book’ transcends 1960s dreams damned to the frailties of reality; this is Blake’s Innocence and Experience second-done. And this, to repeat the idea of being lost for words, as well as to offer the most audacious of paradoxes, is a flight in animation, where the beauty of Philippa’s poetry becomes mute to the magical carpet-ride of Stephanie’s sensitivities… Come on, then, dear animators, this is the one you’ve been waiting for! Remember what was done with Raymond Briggs’ Snowman?
“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all,” scoffs an Irish wit from spirit. What would he have made of this, though, eh? I do but wonder.
If I were limited to one question only, then it would surely be: `Philippa, how long did it take you to write A Shadow in Yutacán?’ And yet I’d refrain, for fear of either answer.
`Not too long,’ she smiles, `it is of my natural pen.’
Then I’ll place down my own forevermore. Consolation being I’ll order more – books! – I suppose.
`Actually, it was a real slog. A good two years.’
Mmm. Oh, why, by GOD, as I write, has it not yet been bestowed with the honour it deserves?
I will read A Shadow in Yutacán again. And again. And each time will be like the first.
This is a masterpiece.
(If you are persuaded you can find it here on Amazon or in ebook here on Smashwords)
![Takes a commute to read, transports you further](https://philipparees.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/underground-yucatan.jpg?w=840&h=586)