Title: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Originally published: June 18, 2013
Author: Neil Gaiman
Publisher: William Morrow and Company
ISBN 1472228421, 9781472228420
Length: 272 pages
Found this book by accident, as I was scrolling through available audiobooks at my local public library. Now I am a NeilGaimanaholic!
Truly, I cannot describe the story line much, without giving a lot away, but it involves a man who remembers pieces of his childhood, beginning when an Australian opal miner steals his father's car. The car is found later at the end of the lane. During his youthful travels, the boy befriends a family of women, who say they lived before the moon was hung in the sky. And, that the pond on their land wasn't a pond; it was really an ocean.
And here's the best part: there are cats in the story! A black cat, with a spot over one ear, named...appropriately...Ocean, and who was a kitten at first, but age doesn't move linearly in that part of the world! The boy loves his cat, and now that I've read a few other Neil Gaiman stories, I find that the author must be a huge cat-lover, because felines are sprinkled into all his tales.
I listened to a recording of this book, read by the author himself, so perhaps his own voice, reading his own words helped to sweep me along into this land of adults who don't understand, and children who do. However, I heartily recommend it to anyone; you will find it a page-turner!
