Corbenic

CORBENIC; Catherine Fisher; Greenwillow; 2006; YA; 281pp.
As grail novels go, The Da Vinci Code stinks by comparison to Corbenic. Cal is leaving home to escape from his alcoholic, mentally-ill mother. On the way to his uncle's house he falls asleep on the train. Awakening with a start, he disembarks at the wrong station--an unsheltered platform near a deep wood. Looking for a phone, he goes through a gate marked "Corbenic," and soon finds himself in the mythical keep of the grail. Much of grail lore and legend fill this beautifully well-written tale: the Fisher King; the bleeding lance; Wagner's "Parsifal," Eliot's "Waste Land," and the knights of the Round Table in the guise of a reenactment Company. Cal's deep need to escape from his past and from his mother run counter to the life he will have to embrace in order to heal himself, the Fisher King, and the ruined land. A ripping yarn, told with great sensitivity and lyricism.

LW