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The Magician's Assistant

3.6 of 5 stars 3.60 · rating details · 12,557 ratings · 1,536 reviews

Sabine-- twenty years a magician's assistant to her handsome, charming husband-- is suddenly a widow. In the wake of his death, she finds he has left a final trick; a false identity and a family allegedly lost in a tragic accident but now revealed as very much alive and well. Named as heirs in his will, they enter Sabine's life and set her on an adventure of unraveling his...more

Kindle Edition, 371 pages

Published September 17th 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (first published October 1st 1997)

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Apr 04, 2011 Dawn rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club, kindling

Is this really Ann Patchett? While the story was mildly intriguing, I couldn't really like the main character. Sabine seemed too satisfied with living a half-life (in love with a gay man, an assistant instead of a magician, a maker of architectural models rather than an architect, etc.). The literary symbolism also seemed clumsy and obvious (last name Fetters, for example). Finally, and most annoying to me as I live here, the ridiculous caricature of Midwesterners made me want to scream. COME ON...more

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Apr 16, 2011 Kara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This book surprised me. Throughout the whole thing, I was never exactly sure how much I was enjoying it, and yet I couldn't wait to pick the book back up and continue reading. By time the book was done, I wanted to read more, and wanted the story to continue.

The story itself is strange, very strange, but it draws you in immediately. It's the story of a woman named Sabine who is coming to terms with exploring the hidden past of her husband, a famous gay magician after his death. You wonder how th...more

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Jun 02, 2008 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I enjoyed reading the book, but after reading it I couldn't say that I loved it (hence, three stars).

Sabine, the main character, spends time with her dead husband's family, none of whom she knew existed. The reader is supposed to come along on the journey with her to discover the missing parts of her longtime friend/spouse, but I didn't gain any new insights to him from her visit back to his roots. The West Coast magician reinvented himself too well to have any connection to the Midwestern teen...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Audra (Unabridged Chick) rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: era-1980s, era-1990s, i-wanted-so-much-more, mood-evocative, not-as-good-as-everyone-said, predatory-lesbian, queer, skeletons-in-the-closet

This is my second Patchett novel, and I liked it even less than the previous one I read ( State of Wonder ).

First, I totally misunderstood the premise of this novel. I thought our heroine Sabine's lovely hottie magician husband dies, and then she discovers he was secretly gay, and then discovers he lied about his family being dead and seeks them out blah blah. Instead, the story is that Sabine's lovely hottie magician husband is openly gay and only marries her in the last year so she may inherit...more This is my second Patchett novel, and I liked it even less than the previous one I read ( State of Wonder ).

First, I totally misunderstood the premise of this novel. I thought our heroine Sabine's lovely hottie magician husband dies, and then she discovers he was secretly gay, and then discovers he lied about his family being dead and seeks them out blah blah. Instead, the story is that Sabine's lovely hottie magician husband is openly gay and only marries her in the last year so she may inherit his things. He's had numerous loves despite her affection for him. When he dies, she discovers his family isn't dead and seeks them out blah blah. Slight difference, but a significant one: it put the idea of knowing more on Sabine. She knew who Parsifal was, to a point -- she'd been his assistant for 20 years -- so I found her behavior in this book to be a bit piteous and aggravating.

Disappointingly, rather than explore the source of her mental and emotional stasis, Patchett has Sabine pursue Parsifal's life -- yet another obsessive step into the life of a man who didn't love her like she loved him. Since I wasn't fixated on Parsifal the way Sabine was, this whole journey didn't capture me. That Sabine seemed to have little emotional growth and development along the way -- other than to glom onto one of Parsifal's relatives -- frustrated me, but I'm not sure that was the intent of Patchett's story. I think we were supposed to like and relate to Sabine but I found her in need of therapy and some time alone to think about who she is and what she wants from her life.

My next complaint is a little harder to articulate, but there was something dated, I guess, about the novel's feel regarding gays. In some ways, that makes sense -- this book came out in 1997, nearly twenty years ago -- but at the same time, I feel like there's an artificial sense of shock and surprise created by Patchett to evoke tension, maybe. I'll have to meditate on this more as I know I'm not expressing myself clearly -- while reading this, I found myself venting to my wife about how all the Midwestern gays I know (even the ones not speaking to their families) had a more layered relationship to their kin than Patchett's imagining.

And on to my final complaint about this book: I wasn't wild about Patchett's use of setting. In State of Wonder, I thought she evoked the Amazon beautifully, magically. In this book, I found her articulation of Nebraska and the Midwest to be little more than caricature. I suppose since I've lived in Nebraska and the Midwest for a good chunk of my life (and not the Amazon), I cared more, but I felt Patchett used stereotypical shorthand to paint the setting -- country kitsch decor, Walmart, brutish spouses -- rather than really evoke the beauty of a place that moves, lives, and breathes differently than L.A.

The writing is very Patchett-ian, I would say. I read a review about this book describing it's "...dreams, flashbacks, and long, elliptical conversations..." which is spot on, and made me insane. I'm not wild about dream sequences in books; I find them a bit self-indulgent and pointless. Perhaps if I liked Sabine more, that element would have resonated, but since I didn't, I felt tired -- I kept putting this one down rather than wallow in the linguistic snakiness.

So, in conclusion, I'm a big cranky wench. Millions of others have enjoyed this novel so I'm sure it's mostly just me.(less)

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Aug 05, 2008 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I know you are thinking, is there a book you don't like, Laura? Here's the deal. If I don't like a book I can barely read it, much less finish it. So if I do read it-I like it, in varying degrees, but I like it. So tonight I read the Magician's Assistant, by Ann Patchett. If you have read Bel Canto, (and you should have, though I'm not sure I'm spelling it right at the moment.)then you know her style. You get hypnotised by the story, by the language, you get into this rhythm that you can't break...more

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Nov 03, 2012 Carol Moore rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Magician’s Assistant *** ½ Ann Patchett

I found the trio of Sabine, Parsifal and Phan all too good, too unflawed, too beautiful, and Sabine's adoration of Parsifal for 22 years was a little hard to fathom. There was apparently no heartache, no discord. In addition, Sabine had been so in love with the glamorous, gay Parsifal that she had failed to realize that she was really gay herself, and thus her attraction to Kitty at the end. That was a bit of a stretch--this beautiful, personable, intel...more The Magician’s Assistant *** ½ Ann Patchett

I found the trio of Sabine, Parsifal and Phan all too good, too unflawed, too beautiful, and Sabine's adoration of Parsifal for 22 years was a little hard to fathom. There was apparently no heartache, no discord. In addition, Sabine had been so in love with the glamorous, gay Parsifal that she had failed to realize that she was really gay herself, and thus her attraction to Kitty at the end. That was a bit of a stretch--this beautiful, personable, intelligent, talented woman did not have a clue about her own sexual orientation. She was not living “apart” from the gay world after all. Other aspects that were too idealized: Sabine’s relationship with her parents and what it’s like living in L.A.
The ending was odd. There was obvious foreshadowing, which went on for too long. Kitty and her boys need to move to L.A. and move in with Sabine. The reader figures out this is where things are heading. Sabine finally realizes she should ask them to move to L.A. That’s fine, but the novel then ends abruptly. It’s not that the reader needed to know exactly whether they would move to L.A. It’s that the ending has to be satisfying.
I did like reading about a magician's life, having known little about this before, and I did like the way Patchett used dreams in this novel to advance the story or add information that would have been hard to introduce otherwise. They weren't your usual dreams, but more like dialogues with the dead--well, mainly Sabine and Phan, leading up to Parsifal's appearance at the end. The dreams put the reader in touch with Sabine’s grief and how the grief changes slowly over time. I enjoyed the way Parsifal’s mysterious past was gradually revealed.
The writing is superb. One pitch-perfect sentence after another kept me hooked. I’m remembering the decriptions about magic tricks, and the times Sabine did some tricks for her “new family”. I felt like I was there. I could see the family watching the same Johnny Carson segment every night. That was also a good device for advancing the story and showing the way grief slowly changed.
The narration for the recorded book was excellent. Dot, the mother/grandmother, was fabulous. Her character came alive. Descriptions of the cold and snow in Nebraska were unforgettable. The portrayal of small town life was realistic.
(less)

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May 24, 2010 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, fiction

I have really become an admirer of Patchett’s writing, and this book was a close second to Bel Canto, which I adored. The Magician’s Assistant is Sabine, and she is mourning the sudden loss of her husband, Parsifal. But the story goes deeper than that. Parsifal is gay, and shortly after the death of his lover, Phan, he marries Sabine to ensure her security in the event of his death. Sabine had been Parsifal’s long-time assistant in his magic act, but more importantly, they shared a bond of frien...more

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Jun 23, 2011 Barbara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Susan, Maria

In my analysis of this book, I have to remind myself that Patchett had written it prior to her amazing, "Bel Canto" and her most recent, "Run". The latter included flat characterizations,and was filled with implausible coincidences and did not meet my expectations for "suspense", as was publicized. In this novel, Patchett had already demonstrated her talent for fashioning her language to convey the complexities of her characters' emotions and actions. She was so adept at this in "Bel Canto", one...more

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Oct 22, 2008 Dayna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 17, 2007 Janet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a warm and very human story. I loved getting to know the main character, Sabine, and watching her come to terms with the choices she's made as she struggles to build a new life after losing her magician. All the characters in this story are so multi-dimensional that I found myself simply engaging with them at a human level and losing the critical distance I usually maintain when I read fiction.

My only real complaint with the novel involves the pacing. Some of the narrative changes were...more

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Sep 23, 2008 Heather rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A friend recommended Ann Patchett, and I'm definitely going to come back for more. Although the plot is not usually something I would be interested in, Ann writes in a style I love. I prefer character based novels more than anything else, and the way this book wrapped me up in this family's lives made me unable to put it down.
**Update...I have a slow processor in my brain, so often my opinions take a lot of time to develop. So, I've come back to hash it out more with this book. Still love Ann P...more

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Dec 04, 2007 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was my first Ann Patchett book, despite the fact that I've been told I would like her for years. I really did like this, too; her writing is clever in a not-trying-too-hard kind of way. The premise was fascinating (the magician's assistant Sabine going off to Nebraska in search of her recently deceased gay husband's mystery family that he never told her about) and I thought it was interesting how she reacted and interacted to and with them. My only complaint was the relationship that Patche...more

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Nov 14, 2008 Natalie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Despite feeling like the ending was a bit of an anticlimax, I thought this was a beautiful and tender book. The main character, Sabine, is very likable but difficult to get to know--both for other characters, and for the reader. So while she does have wonderful, real love in her life, she is also profoundly lonely, especially after losing her husband/best friend. Her grief leads her down a road she never imagined, to unlikely friendships, and that was more than enough for me. I love how Patchett...more

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Jul 09, 2008 Lisle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Maybe Nebraska has some magic. When Sabine's husband, the magician Parsifal, dies, she discovers his unknown family is living in Alliance, Nebraska. Parsifal had told Sabine, his assistant of twenty-two years, that his family was all dead, in Connecticut. Sabine begins a delicate dance, telling his family about him, while they tell her about him. Set in both L.A. and Nebraska, dream sequences take place in both, interweaving with memories of the past. There are shocks and surprises, like any goo...more

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Dec 05, 2008 Shoshana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is my favorite book (so far) by Ann Patchett. It has a very sweet story that is told beautifully.

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Jun 02, 2013 Mitzi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So far, I have loved everything I've read by Ann Patchett and this was no exception. Not quite as strong as Bel Canto and State of Wonder, but kept me enthralled until the end.

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Mar 17, 2008 Holly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 27, 2009 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: queer, fiction-usa-21st-century

I picked this book up a few times and lost interest before finishing the first page. But when I finally got past the first three or four pages, I was really hooked. This characters are just so, so compelling. They're actually so compelling that when I was partway through the book I almost lit a candle at church for two of the characters in it, temporarily confusing them with real people. Which I _think_ is more a testament to how well-written and absorbing the book is than to how socially maladj...more

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Jun 11, 2013 Lisa rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: chick-lit, fiction, fantasy

Check out this review and more on my blog!

Believe it or not, The Magician's Assistant is not my normal fantasy fare involving magic and fairies (although for full disclosure there is some magical realism in there). It is the story of Sabine who was in fact a magician's assistant performing in Vegas, on Johnny Carson, at the Magic Castle in LA, etc. She falls in love with her magician, Percival, but he is gay. He finds a life partner, but she is never able to move on, preferring to keep Percival...more

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May 26, 2013 WJ rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Magician's Assistant is about Sabine, the wife to Parsifal a magician. The story takes place after Parsifal's passing and deals with the impact of his death as well as the revelation of his secret life, about his family who is living in Nebraska. The premise of the book is intriguing an Ann Patchett's writing is quite lovely, employing the third person omniscient narrator to great effect.

Sabine is, and always has been, in love with Parsifal. However, she is only his wife in name because Pars...more The Magician's Assistant is about Sabine, the wife to Parsifal a magician. The story takes place after Parsifal's passing and deals with the impact of his death as well as the revelation of his secret life, about his family who is living in Nebraska. The premise of the book is intriguing an Ann Patchett's writing is quite lovely, employing the third person omniscient narrator to great effect.

Sabine is, and always has been, in love with Parsifal. However, she is only his wife in name because Parsifal has always only had eyes for Phan. I found this relationship to be rather dysfunctional although as I went further into The Magician's Assistant, I began to understand Sabine more and her dependence on Parsifal. Sabine is described to be extremely pretty and she's spent most of her adult life around Parsifal, in love with an unattainable man. So much of her identity has been invested in him that she can only see herself as an assistant despite Dot and Kitty telling her that she could be a magician herself. Sabine was an interesting character.

However, I found her grief and dependence on Parsifal to be a little too much and disturbing at times. Their co-dependent relationship and her inability to have relationships with other men strikes me as extremely unhealthy. Her interactions with Phan in the dreamscape were also rather odd. Although Sabine's character is the one we spent most time with, I still found her to be completely enigmatic at the end of the novel.

The pacing of The Magician's Assistant wasn't done very well. The first half which takes place in Los Angeles was quite boring, with readers simply following Sabine around as she folds in grief. When Dot and Bertie visit, there's some interesting interaction between Sabine and the family she never knew existed. Perhaps Ann Patchett was trying to set the scene and prep us for the second half in the novel but all the same, the first half was boring. The story picks up speed in Nebraska, where the Plate family and the Fetters rally around Sabine and she finds out more about Parsifal (aka Guy Fetters).

Parsifal is depicted to be an awesome guy. I'm not sure if this is one of the cases where people who have passed away are viewed with rose-tinted glasses because Parsifal never came across as wonderful as they have described him. He's idolized to an extent that's quite unbelievable and doesn't seem to have any flaws. (view spoiler) He's supposed to be the main driving force behind the novel but he always seemed to be a flat character to me.

I managed to press on and finish The Magician's Assistant even though the parts which I enjoyed were far and few. Ann Patchett's beautiful prose was lovely to read, although the depth and detail in which she went into Sabine's psyche was tedious at times (in that she said a lot but Sabine's character was ultimately mysterious and not easy to understand).

The ending left me rather unsatisfied as well.(less)

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May 23, 2013 Dava Stewart rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This story made me cry and that hasn't happened for a very long time. It is the story of Sabine, who knows that she has been protected and cocooned her entire life, and mourns that fact while also feeling grateful for it. Another reviewer mentioned that midwesterners are stereotyped rather badly, and that is a valid criticism, but still does not detract from how much I enjoyed this story.

Sabine seems to have lived her life in a dream. She is a little like the pet rabbit in the story - loved, pe...more

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May 07, 2013 Joanne Guidoccio rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The novel opens with two short definitive statements. “Parsifal is dead. That is the end of the story.” Unique but not unexpected from best-selling author Ann Patchett.

In The Magician’s Assistant, Parsifal turns out to be a gay magician, successful rug merchant and AIDS sufferer who has just died of a ruptured aneurysm while holding hands with Sabine, his assistant and wife of less than a year. Shock intermingles with grief as Sabine discovers the rude surprise delivered posthumously in Parsifal...more

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Mar 22, 2013 Shinelle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Patchett's ability to interweave an ensemble of sympathetic characters with a suspenseful plot create a story--multiple stories--that make you want to snip the edge and unravel the mystery, and make you hurt for the people involved. And in truth, though we spend lots of time both moving forward and flashing back, there are chunks of story that you just never get. Sometimes that's okay. Sometimes I want to track Ann Patchett down and find out what the hell happened.

Though Dot's character starts...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Uco Library rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: jean-longo

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 12, 2013 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sabine has spent her entire life pining after the one man she could never have. She’s spent years working as a magician’s assistant for Parsifal, but he is gay and can never return her love in the way she wants. She was close friends with both him and his partner Phan. After Phan’s death she and Parsifal marry for companionship and so that she will inherit his home. When he passes away she finds out he was not orphaned as he claimed, but has a whole family in Nebraska who want to meet her.

This...more

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Feb 05, 2013 Smcleish rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally published on my blog here in August 2003.

Sabine has worked most of her life as a magician's assistant, hopelessly in love with her partner Parsifal even after she realises that he is gay. Then Parsifal's lover dies of AIDS, and he marries Sabine because he wants her to inherit everything he and Phan had without a massive tax bill (Phan was a programmer who wrote a massively successful game); he dies soon afterwards not from HIV but from an unexpected aneurysm. It is only a few days la...more Originally published on my blog here in August 2003.

Sabine has worked most of her life as a magician's assistant, hopelessly in love with her partner Parsifal even after she realises that he is gay. Then Parsifal's lover dies of AIDS, and he marries Sabine because he wants her to inherit everything he and Phan had without a massive tax bill (Phan was a programmer who wrote a massively successful game); he dies soon afterwards not from HIV but from an unexpected aneurysm. It is only a few days later that Sabine discovers that almost everything that Parsifal told her over the past twenty years about his family background has been a lie; instead of being from New England, his parents and siblings dead, he came from Nebraska, and he has left a letter with his lawyer asking that his mother and sisters be provided for. And so they come to Los Angeles to meet Sabine, visit Parsifal's grave and see a city none of them have ever visited before, and Sabine begins to find out something of her husband's true past, and why he had cut himself off from it so profoundly.

This, then, is a novel of discovery, but not the self-discovery which is so common a literary theme (though as Sabine gets to know her ex-husband's real family, she learns some surprising things about herself too). It is mainly about being able to move beyond initial snap judgements to a better understanding of people.

Patchett uses the setting to help herself underline the differences between Parsifal's life as a stage magician, accepted as gay by his friends and successful in his profession, and the repressive atmosphere of his upbringing in what must be one of the most old fashioned small towns in the United States, to judge by this account. She does this with the simple device of setting the novel's action in winter, so that Los Angeles remains a place of warmth while Alliance lies under a blanket of freezing snow.

This particular edition of The Magician's Assistant has a massively misleading blurb, which has led my local library to classify it as fantasy. (Mind you, they have also put Michael Connelly's Void Moon in the science fiction section, for even less reason.) The novel is described as being about Sabine's discovery of powers of actual magic - which might make for an intriguing fantasy novel - and this simply is not what The Magician's Assistant is about. There is one aspect of the supernatural in the apparent reunions with Phan and Parsifal that Sabine experiences in here dreams, and there is a hint that she goes beyond the possible in one magic trick that she performs, and that's all; far less than in magic realist novels like Midnight's Children that no library would put into the fantasy genre shelves.(less)

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Dec 11, 2012 Cleo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Parsifal, a handsome magician, dies suddenly, leaving his widow and magic assistant Sabine, to find out that his family, who he said had died, is still alive and well in Nebraska. Sabine is left behind to unravel his many secrets, and she meets his mother and sisters, going from Los Angeles to Nebraska's windswept plains. Ann Patchett, the author of Bel Canto, wrote this one, which is equally amazing. Like Bel Canto, nothing really astounding actually happens in the book; it's more the lush and...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Sheri rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: male-female-power-sex-attractivenes, poverty-class-issues

Whew. I've been muddling through 2 and 3 star books for a while; it was quite a relief to find this beautiful specimen. I have State of Wonder on my to read list and was browsing stacks in the library by author and figured I'd pick up something else by Patchett to see what I thought. And I loved it.

This book was very compelling, beautifully written, amazingly perceptive, funny, and wise. The characters were complex, the plot unfolded well, and I really only have one very small criticism.
I thou...more Whew. I've been muddling through 2 and 3 star books for a while; it was quite a relief to find this beautiful specimen. I have State of Wonder on my to read list and was browsing stacks in the library by author and figured I'd pick up something else by Patchett to see what I thought. And I loved it.

This book was very compelling, beautifully written, amazingly perceptive, funny, and wise. The characters were complex, the plot unfolded well, and I really only have one very small criticism.
I thought the two boys (How and Guy) were not consistently portrayed. They are supposed to be in 9th and 11th grades (making them roughly 14 and 16) and yet, most of the time they were described (at least emotionally and mentally) as about 9 and 11 (I mean really, they can't just go home after school and be alone, they still need their grandma to babysit them???); then, at the very end when Kitty and Sabine are looking through their rooms to pack, Sabine finds a roach on the floor. What? They are smoking pot? When? They are never home alone!

On the other hand, the unraveling of the romance between Kitty and Sabine was great. I had it pegged the morning after Sabine's first meeting with Kitty when she comes out into the living room to discuss things with Dot and she just can't stop thinking about Kitty's beautiful face and how much she resembles Parsifal. After just having watched 12th Night at the local Shakespeare theater, I had sibling switcheroo in my head and maybe guessed this sooner than other readers might. Either way, Patchett unfolds it beautifully and it is completely understandable from a psychological perspective.

I loved the subtle revelation of Howard's relationship with Kitty. At first I was convinced that he was very abusive (Patchett sets the reader up with Kitty's inability to make dinner on Sabine's arrival) and controlling, but as it developed I understood him to be less abusive in the sense that Albert was abusive and more violent natured. I am not saying he's not a prick and certainly in the last scene with the knife the reader is given a glimpse of the harm he might be capable of inflicting, but he is not just an abusive jerk. He is a complex character; he is a bully with no real self esteem and in his own way is upset at the very real possibility that his wife is actually going to leave him this time. He understand the complexities of the relationship between Kitty and Sabine and feels threatened. I was so pleased that this minor character was not just a stereotype place holder, but also has depth and complex angles.

Really, there was hardly anything here that did not please me in some way (almost unheard of if you've read any of my other reviews). I have three worth quotes below:

"Having come to find there was no comfort in getting what she wanted, what she wanted now was something else entirely." Great concise quote on human nature.

"For twenty-two years Sabine had told her stories to one person, so that the action and the telling had become inseparable. What was left was half a life, the one where she lived it but had nothing later to give shape to the experience." As a new widow, Sabine does not know how to live without having Parsifal there to reflect her own experience back to her. Again, concise and beautiful.

"You never told because people wanted so desperately to know. They wanted what you had and therefore what you had was all the power. Who would give that up? What possible benefit could there ever be in telling? A minute of gratitude and then the dull falling away, the boredom that always followed knowledge." Not only true in relation to the revelation of magic tricks, but also the human inability to achieve satisfaction. It goes great as a concept with the first quote above...all that ever happens once you get something (an object, knowledge, or love from the unattainable) is that you find a new thing to want.

This is a beautifully written, compelling and complex work that manages to be witty at the same time.(less)

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May 30, 2012 Robbins Library rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: jenny-recommends

I love all of Ann Patchett's writing - novels, nonfiction, and essays alike - but I think The Magician's Assistant is my favorite. Sabine (the assistant) is grieving over the death of Parsifal (the magician) in their home in Los Angeles, CA. She is startled to find out that, contrary to what Parsifal told her, his real name is Guy Fetters and his family did not die in a car crash but is alive and living in Nebraska.

Guy's mother and one of his sisters fly out and meet Sabine, and later she goes...more

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Apr 14, 2012 Ken Bronsil rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Once, when I was in my early 20s, I traveled from Chicago to Cincinnati on a Greyhound Bus "local" route. That meant that we rode the highways and byways from one Indiana town to another, stopping at bus stations near courthouses or town squares to pick up some people, drop off others, and give us a chance to stretch our legs. The trip lasted somewhere between nine and twelve hours. There was a lot of waiting around.

I felt that way going through this book. Although Patchett can describe a person...more

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“Nothing comforted Sabine like long division. That was how she had passed time waiting for Phan and then Parsifal to come back from their tests. She figured the square root of the date while other people knit and read. Sabine blamed much of the world's unhappiness on the advent of calculators.” — 3 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10787082-the-magician-s-assistant?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1362689806l/10787082.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10787082-the-magician-s-assistant?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchet[/url]

The Magician's Assistant

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