Tam Lin
core novel 1991 Tam Lin
Record
| First published | 1991 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.84 (5,840 ratings, collected 2026-09-05) |
| First-edition ISBN | 0-312-85137-5 |
Synopsis
Tam Lin is a 1991 contemporary fantasy novel based on the traditional Scottish border ballad of the same name, relocated to a small, richly imagined Midwestern college campus in the early 1970s. Protagonist Janet Carter arrives as a freshman steeped in literature and drawn into the intense, bookish social world of her dormitory and her classics-obsessed friends, navigating ordinary college life, romance, and academic ambition across several years of study. Amid this campus life, a striking, secretive young man named Thomas Lane draws her attention, carrying a dangerous secret bound up with the old ballad and with a mysterious, glamorous patron of the arts whose interest in certain students never seems entirely benign. As Janet grows closer to Thomas, she begins piecing together just what, and who, is really at stake behind the campus's charmed literary surface.
Where it sits
- Universe: Tam Lin
- Series: not part of a registered series (standalone work within its universe)
- Author: Pamela Dean
Awards (verified)
- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award (Adult Literature), 1992: finalist
Notes
- A contemporary retelling of the Border ballad, set at a fictional Minnesota college in the early 1970s. Published as part of Terri Windling's shared Fairy Tale line of standalone novels by different authors, each retelling one traditional story -- this admission covers only this one novel, following this project's usual practice of registering each author's own contribution to a shared line as its own single-work universe, not the whole multi-author line as one universe.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tam_Lin_(novel)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tam_Lin_(Dean_novel)
- The Mythopoeic Society, official Fantasy Award finalists list
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