Have you ever heard of a hillbilly wizard? I know it has never crossed my mind. In Terry Bisson’s mind he a had a great imagination on magic. Terry is from Kentucky, and that’s a where he had the idea of a hillbilly wizard.



“There is two was to tell a wizard and a mortal apart. One is by the blue light that plays around his tires when he is heading north on wet pavement. The other is by singing.” These are the first few lines of the book. When I read the first three sentences I knew it was going to be a good book. And, a matter of fact it was.



Talking Man was the wizard’s name. He lives on the Kentucky Tennessee state line and owned a junkyard. I thought that the first few chapters of the book were slow. I was debating on if my predication on if the book was still going to be good right. Terry Bisson proved that I wasn’t wrong.



In parts of the book I felt like I was actually there. He made me think and wonder what was going to happen next. The book pulled me into the creativity and I couldn’t stop reading, after just one chapter. I had to keep on and on.


As you know now that Talking Man is a wizard. He had a daughter named Crystal and she was sixteen years old, when she was three her mother died in a car crash. Crystal is trying to coop with her mom’s death, her dad as a wizard, and worrying about the unbeen.


William is another main character in the book. He’s is eighteen years old and lives in Owensboro. He came in the picture when he was driving his cousin’s mustang, and a rock hit the windshield and cracked it. He was worrying that his cousin would want to kill him. So he found a junkyard that fixed cars. And, it just so happened to be Talking Man’s. He didn’t think that Talking Man could fix it, but he did with…. Magic!


You could tell that Crystal and William liked each other from the start. After a while Talking Man went missing. Crystal said that Dgene had him. Dgene was the ruler of Edminidine a city by the North Pole.


Crystal and William took the Chrysler which was the “magic” car. They set out a journey to find Talking Man. The reason Dgene kidnapped Talking Man was because of the unbeen. Dgene thought that Talking Man had the jar of the unbeen. The unbeen was the end of time if you opened it all the way everyone on earth and in Edminidine would die. What Dgene didn’t know was that Crystal had the jar in the Chrysler, and she also had the owl which if you threw it in the unbeen it would destroy it.


Crystal and William’s journey in finding Talking Man was quite funny I thought. They had troubles with people in bars, and police officers. And, one night they had to stay in a hotel and it was Crystal’s first time staying in one. It was like a little kid walking into the President’s house. She was so happy, and looking at everything.


After days trying to find Talking Man they finally did, and snuck him in the car and Dgene was mad and after that they had a race to see who could get to Edminidine the fastest. Talking Man, Crystal, and William wanted to save the world and Dgene wanted to destroy it.


After a few days they finally reached Edminidine. In the book Edminidine is described liked this. “The top of the world is not ice and snow, as is generally believed, but a city of seamless stone, as colorless as unfired pottery, sprawling across the flat, featureless pole between low, unsteep ranges of hills. The city is all made of identical square one-story gray buildings, each with one window and one door in the same wall. Built but never used for a million years, it was already waiting when the moon was first captured by the earth, still waiting when it was shattered into rings, and it has waited ever since, with no roads leading in or out.”


When Talking Man, Crystal, and William arrived they were a half an hour late. Dgene and her partner beat them there. As, Talking Man and Crystal get out of the car they tell William to stay. Talking Man and Crystal begin to walk to the middle of the city. They have the jar and the owl in their hands and their hiding behind a wall when they see Dgene. Hey Hoss, Dgene’s partner came up behind them and stabbed Crystal and then Talking Man was stabbed.


After William hears screaming he runs to find them. In the meantime, Dgene took the jar and started opening it. The unbeen started to come out. If the unbeen touches any part of you that part of your body is gone.


As, William approaches he kills Hey Hoss, and Dgene was captured by the unbeen. And, William had to destroy the unbeen. He takes the owl and throws it and misses it, he went to go get it and the unbeen caught his fingers so the top of his fingers were gone. The second time he throws the owl he misses again. Then, Talking Man says that he has to go and close it. William was terrified to do this, but he does and the unbeen was gone.


The next day the three wakes up and William puts Crystal in the car and Talking Man tells William to get the gun. He says to shoot him so he could get out of his misery. On Crystal and William’s way home they forgot about everything, and were excited when they reached the Kentucky welcome sign. After a few years they got married, and a little girl named Grace Laurel after William’s mom who died slowly, and Crystal’s mom who died suddenly.


This book was an amazing book to read, to get the whole story you’ll have to read it. To get the fill in’s that I left out. This is a Fantasy because of the magic, and the unbeen. I would highly recommend this book.