Books To Look For by Charles de Lint  THE LAKE DREAMS THE SKY, by Swain Wolfe Cliff Street Books/HarperCollins, 1999; $13.00 Many columns back we discussed Swain Wolfe's first novel, The Woman Who Lives in the Earth, a gentle, secondary world fantasy that would not have been amiss sitting on a bookshelf beside Patricia McKillip's work. This time out Wolfe tells a more contemporary story of a Boston career woman returning to her childhood home where she hopes to regain the sense that there is a purpose to life, a feeling she once had as a young woman, but has since lost. The childhood home is by a lake in Montana where her grandmother still lives, and for the first few pages we get to see them awkwardly interact with each other in this rambling old house, filled with so many magazines and newspapers that it makes simple navigation somewhat of a chore. But while this is an important aspect to the novel, the main meat of the tale--and what's told at much longer length--is of a post-World War II romance between Rose, a waitress who has returned to the lake to care for the local Native woman who raised her, and Cody, a drifting handyman and painter. The sections detailing Rose and Cody's relationship, their schemes to make some money, how they deal with the increasing hostility to their relationship by both the townspeople and that of the local Natives, as well as Wolfe's depictions of the honest, but hard-working poor, reminded me of Steinbeck's Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday (a good thing, since they're a pair of my all-time favorite books). But added to the quirkiness of people living in their cars, and schemes going terribly awry, is a magical element as well. There is a snake named Loneliness living in the bottom of the lake. Rose used to talk to crows, and got answers. The lake is set on fire, literally and figuratively. In short, mythologies and old beliefs rise up through the sensible prose to wash over the real world. The final scene in Rose and Cody's story is pure magic, but I don't want to say any more than that for fear of spoiling it for those of you who might go on to read the novel. And what of that Boston career woman and her grandmother? Their story ties into the old in a manner at once expected, but no less satisfying for that. This is a deep, lyric book, with many layers, characters you'll fall in love with, and scenes that will remain with you for a very long time. It proves that the shimmering beauty of The Woman Who Lives in the Earth was no fluke and makes me eagerly look forward to what Wolfe will offer to us next.