It’s not until the second and third readings that you start to appreciate some of the jokes and more puzzling comments, or really see the magic that is happening. In fact, Tam Lin isn’t a book that can be enjoyed fully on the first read-through. The magic at Blackstock is all seen out of the corner of the eye, or is seen but not understood until later. Even its less beautiful bits, like the ugly shoe-box-shaped Forbes dormitory and the reflective glass box of the Music and Drama Center are affectionately depicted, so that the whole place takes on the aura of an enchanted space. Blackstock College even more so with its lovingly described campus surrounded by ancient cedar trees and maples and ash, a stream, woods and two small lakes. It’s a place wholly wrapped up in itself and as such is the perfect setting in which to meet the otherworldly.

University is nothing like the home and family you’ve come from, nor is it the working world into which you will subsequently go. Not only is it a transitional period for those who go, it is also cut off from everything before and after it. I think the main reason Pamela Dean’s blend of college and magic works so well (and it really does work brilliantly) is that the time spent at university is a time unto itself. And if that all sounds a little vague, that’s because you really do have to see it for yourself. Seen only at a slant to this world, however, is another peopled with fairies, ghosts and people living out of time. It follows student Janet and her friends through their time at Blackstock College, fondly witnessing all the dramas, large and small, of living away from home for the first time.

Reading Tam Lin is like reading two parallel stories – one a straightforward tale of college life in the 1970s, the other a much stranger and more magical brew. Set against the backdrop of the early 1970s, imbued with wit, poetry, romance, and magic, Tam Lin has become a cult classic and once you begin reading, you’ll know why.

In this version of “Tam Lin,” masterfully crafted by Pamela Dean, Janet is a college student, “Carterhaugh” is Carter Hall at the university where her father teaches, and Tam Lin is a boy named Thomas Lane. and then must battle the Queen of Faery for possession of her lover’s body and soul. In the ancient Scottish ballad “Tam Lin,” headstrong Janet defies Tam Lin to walk in her own land of Carterhaugh.

Tam Lin by Pamela Dean