Neil Gaiman Meets C.S. Lewis

Given Colin Meloyâ??s propensity for obscure terms, recondite phrasing, and historical topics as the singer-songwriter frontman of The Decemberists, it would be reasonable to expect his debut novel, Wildwood, to be a dense thicket of words, possibly about the abstract, emotionally painful relationship between a guttersnipe and an eidolon in Victorian London. Instead, itâ??s something far more surprising: An entirely familiar mash-up of illustrated childrenâ??s books past. Itâ??s far from flavorless, but the flavor is more Neil Gaiman-meets-C.S. Lewis than The Decemberists in novel form.