Long Black Curl by Alex Bledsoe is the third Tufa
book which is a ‘series’ of interconnected novels that all really stand on
their own with independent stories. Of course the reader familiar with the
other books in the series will experience things at a deeper level.
Anyway, as evident from my reviews of other Tufa books, I really, really enjoy them, and Long Black Curl is no exception to this trend. It always surprises
me that I don’t read more Mythic Fiction – books that loosely fall into
category of Mythic Fiction seem to connect with me at a deeper level, bringing
me a much more holistic and satisfied reading experience. Not merely entertaining
or escapist and not really the sort of book that makes me feel like I’m a
better person for having read it, but books that truly connect, books that
awaken deeper awareness of myself.
Bledsoe’s Tufa books
are about an exiled faerie clan who settled in the Appalachian Mountains long
before humans came along. These stories tell how the Tufa people interact with
the modern world around them and show how they are connected to their land and
their music at deeper levels than the people around them. While set within the
modern world, they bring the reader back in time, reminding us of the deeper
connections to nature and the land around us. For the Tufa, music is the
vehicle that this connection is founded within.
Long Black Curl is specifically about two exiled Tufa who have lost their ability
to sing. These exiled exiles are cursed in a fundamentally horrific form of suffering
for their people, further complicated by their means of surviving in the modern
world – both work in the music industry. This forms the back bone for a story
of revenge, loss, and redemption. A large part of the success of this story
works because of duality of the modern world and the ‘other’, timeless world of
the Tufa, and it’s an approach that I am especially fond of.
I love the Tufa books
because they really embody Mythic Fiction in a way few books achieve. The
emotions invoked are full of mystery, darkness, fear, love, and a whole host of
other primal emotions for us all. While I believe that it’s the connection to
nature that leads me to back to Mythic Fiction, the vehicle of music to form
this connection is fully realized in these books. This is a very tough balance
to achieve as it’s quite easy to nerd out on the music without ever creating
the deep emotional connection that is really necessary1. Charles de Lint is another author I who can achieve this balance and I rank him and
Bledsoe at the top of a short list of authors who do.
Long Black Curl is another wonderful addition to the collection of Tufa novels by Bledsoe and another
reminder of how much I enjoy these books.
The Tufa
Novels
Long Black Curl: Amazon
Chapel of Ease: Amazon
1For an example of a Mythic
Fiction book where the bridge of music between the modern world and something
other never quite works out an fails to achieve the emotional connection
needed, see The Crow of Connemara by Stephen Leigh (I’ll eventually get to writing a full review for it).
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