What Moonheart Means to me
The 40th anniversary of the publication of Moonheart is an opportunity for me to reflect on why this unique work is so dear to me personally. It changed my idea of what fantasy fiction could be. It was the first fantasy book I read that brought myths and legends into the world I lived in.
I didn’t read much through high school. While I loved reading in my younger years—Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and anything by Agatha Christie were my favorites—by the time I got into high school, the forced reading of Great Expectations and Crime and Punishment turned reading into work, and I no longer read for fun. When I got out of high school and discovered books I enjoyed like The Lord of the Rings and The Sword of Shannara (and started playing Dungeons & Dragons), I found that I loved speculative fiction. I joined the Science Fiction Book Club and read series like The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson. While these had connections to our world—Thomas Covenant was from our world but traveled to The Land, and Corwin, the Prince of Amber, lived in our world while he suffered from amnesia—these weren’t the kind of “urban fantasy” that I found and loved in Moonheart.
Moonheart brought the magic to our world—we weren’t just tangential to the story. Our world became part of the story.
I was a twenty-something art student when I first stumbled upon de Lint’s Moonheart at Waldenbooks. Back then, you would wander the store searching for new fantasy and science fiction books. The enchanting cover by David Mattingly caught my eye, with a bard playing a harp to a young woman by the fire. The back of the wrap-around cover also showed a mysterious stagman watching from the woods. Little did I know that this book would resonate so deeply with me, its characters becoming my companions and its setting, Tamson House, a place I would long to visit. Sara, with her fierce independence and sense of adventure, felt like someone I could easily envision as a friend.
The novel features many wonderful characters. Many girls, like Sara, will fall in love with Taliesin. Blue is a protective big brother, Jamie a lovable eccentric uncle, and Tucker, the RCMP officer investigating the paranormal, predates The X-Files. A host of odd characters and myths-come-to-life round out the story.
But there was no single character as strong as Tamson House itself. Oh, how I wanted to visit Tamson House. (I still do!) A house that covers a city block, with a garden you could get lost in, is quite romantic. Just the concept of a bohemian place where people come and go, live, share, and create art and music is extremely appealing—even if there is an edge of danger to its magic. It’s a truly fantastical place that becomes a central character in the story.
Sara stood out as a believable female protagonist compared to most of what I’d read before. She was adventurous and brave when she needed to be, but scared at times too. She was no superhero but was willing to do what must be done. She was so well written that I thought “Charles de Lint” must be a pseudonym for a female writer. (This was before there was an Internet where you could look that up on your phone.)
In 1997, I helped to form a book club of 10 women. Each month the host would choose a book. For my first selection, I chose Moonheart. Most of the group usually read best sellers, general fiction, and “book club” selections—they were not speculative fiction readers. I introduced them to fantasy with a book that was longer than most (at 470+ pages). It had mythology, unusual names, and concepts that were quite foreign to the group. AND THEY LOVED IT. In years of reading and over 150 book club selections, there were only a few books that were unanimously enjoyed by all—and Moonheart was one of them. It opened the group to reading speculative fiction more often (even when it wasn’t my selection).
Moonheart will always have a special place in my heart as one of my all-time favorite books. I was lucky enough to get to meet and talk to Charles to tell him that via Zoom (on Charles’ first Zoom call ever). After the Tamson House auction, a small group had a friendly, virtual conversation that felt like old friends chatting for the evening.
I thank Charles de Lint for Moonheart and his many other novels and short stories that have captivated and inspired me and so many other readers over the years.
Moonheart Illustrations
A note about the images: When Julie mentioned needing some art for the website, I went through Moonheart to gather some ideas. I create a lot of illustrations for DreamForge Magazine and work heavily with Photoshop, blending stock images and applying filters to give them a unique, artistic, or painted feel. Instead of illustrating specific scenes from the book, I aimed to create images that capture the atmosphere and essence of Moonheart.
Forest
Weirden
Tamson House
Tragga
Taliesen and Sarah
© Jane Noel
Jane is the Founder of Chroma Marketing Essentials, a digital marketing agency located in Jeannette PA. She holds a degree in Visual Communications from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and more years of experience than she cares to count. Before founding CME, Jane worked as an Artist, Art Lead, Art Director, and Project Manager for the computer game developer DreamForge Intertainment, where she worked on a number of early computer games, including Roger Zelazny’s Chronomaster.
Celebrating CdL 