The Truth is a Cave
in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman
Published by Headline
17th June 2014
Hardback Edition
You ask me if I can forgive myself? I can forgive myself for many things. For where I left him. For what I did.
And so begins The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains,
a haunting story of family, the other world, and a search for hidden
treasure.
Neil Gaiman has done it yet again, and written something
that is like no other. The Truth is
a Cave in the Black Mountains was first published in All New Tales
in 2010. This new version, fully
illustrated in colour, by Eddie Campbell is the first time it has been
published as a stand-alone story.
This is not a long book, just 74 pages in total but that
doesn't mean that you don't get a full and thought-provoking story because you
do. It tells the tale of a man, a small
man, but a man no-less and his search for gold on the Misty Isle. He bids Calum MacInnes, a man who has been
to the isle before, to be his guide in his quest.
As the book unravels, we learn both more of the
narrator and his companion and of how their paths are intrinsically linked by
an earlier fate. As with many tales,
what goes around, comes around and the balance of karma is restored at the end
of the story.
I love Scotland, and I love the Isle of Skye, where my
ancestors landed as Vikings many centuries ago. This is not a fairy tale for children by any means but a book for
grown-ups; a tale of travel and darkness with pictures of all kinds. On the 4th and 5th July, Neil Gaiman
will read this story to two audiences at the Barbican and Usher Hall,
accompanied by the illustrations from the text, and a new underscore by the
FourPlay String Quartet. I envy those
audiences the performance that will befall them.
Happy Reading
Loved it when I 1st read it, loved it even more in this new format.
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