Ray Bradbury, America’s most beloved storyteller, has spent a lifetime carrying readers to exhilarating and dangerous places, from dark street corners in unfamiliar cities and towns to the edge of the universe. Now, in an extraordinary flight of the imagination a half-century in the making, he takes us to a most wondrous destination: into the heart of an Eternal Family.
They have lived for centuries in a house of legend and mystery in upper Illinois—and they are not like other Midwesterners. Rarely encountered in daylight hours, their children are curious and wild; their old ones have survived since before the Sphinx first sank its paws deep in Egyptian sands. And some sleep in beds with lids.
Now the house is being readied in anticipation of the gala homecoming that will gather together the far-flung branches of this odd and remarkable family. In the past-midnight stillness can be detected the soft fluttering of Uncle Einar’s wings. From her realm of sleep, Cecy, the fairest and most special daughter, can feel the approach of many a welcome being—shapeshifter, telepath, somnambulist, vampire—as she flies high in the consciousness of bird and bat.
But in the midst of eager anticipation, a sense of doom pervades. For the world is changing. And death, no stranger, will always shadow this most singular family: Father, arisen from the Earth; Mother, who never sleeps but dreams; A Thousand Times Great Grandmére; Grandfather, who keeps the wildness of youth between his ears.
And the boy who, more than anyone, carries the burden of time on his shoulders: Timothy, the sad and different foundling son who must share it all, remember, and tell … and who, alone out of all of them, must one day age and wither and die.
By turns lyrical, wistful, poignant, and chilling, From the Dust Returned will surely be numbered among Ray Bradbury’s most enduring masterworks.
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"If you've seen my other reviews (in all their conciseness), you'll know that i tend to lavish praise on almost all of my literary conquests. this is one of several instances where lavish praise is in fact due. much like "Something Wicked This Way Comes", Bradbury's prose has the vague, dreamy quality of an elderly master story-teller who sits in front of his campfire, with phrases and parables that crawl into the bottom back of your brain and lodge themselves there, much like Cecy Elliot from this book would do if she were real. and whatsmore, this book is slightly autobiographical, since Bradbury states that the characters are based on some of his real family members (I guess that makes little Timothy the historian little Ray). and its sad, i think that now Bradbury himself has returned to the dust, but these tales will live on, bat wings, mists, papyrus, and all. and i think its time you, the reader of this review, owed it to Ray Bradbury to read this book five decades in the making. and it will enchant you from your attic place to the dust from whence you came."
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Blake (5 out of 5 stars)