I love this kind of fantasy story, where the fantastic  elements slide from metaphor to concrete reality and back again, and can be read just as fruitfully either way. Pearlman’s narrator looks back on his relationship with his father, which began with him viewing his dad as a giant of a man, and grew worse as the protagonist his father’s shortcomings. At every stage, the father’s stature diminishes – figuratively and literally – in his son’s eyes, and the intertwining of reality and fantasy results in a very fine tale.

Rating: ****