Obviously I'm very late to the party in listening to this discussion, but I did have a thought regarding the question of whether this book "counts" magical realism. My sense in reading it was much more that it is more like the flip-side of a book like Stephen King's It, except that rather than a mystical demonic force that is woven through the story, it's a mystical divine force. In both cases the force is remarked upon by the characters, who strive to understand it, but the world, otherwise, is intended to be our own.
Obviously I'm very late to the party in listening to this discussion, but I did have a thought regarding the question of whether this book "counts" magical realism. My sense in reading it was much more that it is more like the flip-side of a book like Stephen King's It, except that rather than a mystical demonic force that is woven through the story, it's a mystical divine force. In both cases the force is remarked upon by the characters, who strive to understand it, but the world, otherwise, is intended to be our own.