The Magician's Assistant

The book discussion group at The LGBT Center in NYC read "The Magicians Assistant" in November 2015. I liked this book but several members thought it was one of the best books the group has read.The novel is actually two stories, combined into a single narrative.+ Story 1: Guy leaves Nebraska, re-invents himself as Parsifal the Magician (and rug dealer) in Los Angeles, marries his gay lover Phan, and then marries his assistant Sabine after Phan dies.+ Story 2: Sabine discovers that his family isn't dead as Parsifal told her but is living in Nebraska, where she goes to visit and learn Parsifal's true story.A surprisingly small number of things happen with a few well-placed revelations, but I never got bored and wanted to know how it would all turn out. A few random events (such as the buying of a rug at a flea market and selecting Sabine as a "volunteer") seem magical but perfectly motivate the story. The writing is flawless and full of rich psychology for the characters.Guy's family seems OK when two of them visit in LA, but they're a mess back in Nebraska. They never got over losing Guy and cling to small memories of him. They view Sabine as the vehicle to learn all about the years he wasn't around.I believe that the thesis statement of the novel appears about half way through part 1: "Magicians all across the world managed quite well without assistants, but without magicians, the assistants were lost. Even if Sabine had never loved magic the way she loved Parsifal, she realized that it was one more thing that was over for her. She had been a brightly painted label, a well-made box, a bottle cap. She was never the reason."Sabine isn't an architect but builds architectural models - she's always the assistant, never the magician or the architect.Sabine falls for Guy's/Parsifal's sister Kitty, partially because she looks like Parsifal. Kitty falls for Sabine because she represents Guy: the smart, handsome, talented brother who got away. In this way, Sabine also seems "less than the reason" here, not being loved for who she is but for who she married. I don't think we decided whether or not Sabine is a lesbian or bi-sexual. I think the sexless aspect of both relationships is suspect.The language and descriptions throughout the novel are terrific. I sometimes bristle at too much graphic detail and too many long descriptions, but I didn't get upset with "The Magician's Assistant." For example, Sabine's discovery of Guy's childhood room in Nebraska reveals a huge amount about Guy's childhood. Patchett spends many pages carefully depicting four magic tricks at key points in the novel, which might seem to be excessive. But each of them is a metaphor for the current emotional and psychological situation in the novel and advances the plot in small unexpected ways.About my only complaint about the novel is that everybody is too nice. Sabine has romanticized everything so that the Parsifal/Phan/Sabine threesome lived together in perfect harmony in LA. In Nebraska, Guy's mother has lead a tortured life but remains optimistic. Guy's sister is regularly abused by her bully husband but she compensates and carries on admirably. Bertie's fiancee is too good to be true (and maybe even a little too passive, considering the family into which he's marrying). Even Sabine's parents are overly thoughtful and concerned about their only daughter. But they met under extremely ugly circumstances - you have to read carefully to understand where they actually met in Poland - but they don't talk about this horror to protect Sabine (and she may not fully acknowledge it).Random notes:-- LA and Alliance, Nebraska, are mirrors of each other. They even sound like reflections with their reversed "a" and "l" sounds. Tropical LA is all about illusion while Alliance is very real, even under a blanket of snow.-- The magician's rabbit (named "Rabbit") is a minor character in the novel. Guy's sister also has an animal name: Kitty.-- Guy's much younger sister Bertie is getting married to Haas, which is German for "hare" (like hasenpfeffer).-- Guy's family name is "Fetters," which is a chain or manacle used to restrain a prisoner, typically placed around the ankles. Nobody with the name "Fetters" gets out of Nebraska.-- Based on Sabine's teaching of Guy's nephew at the end, there may be a hint that there's a genetic component to being a magician or performing magic tricks. But there's also a hint that magic is real. Sabine isn't just a magician's assistant but has somehow harnessed the ability to perform "real magic." Perhaps like transporting Kitty and her sons to LA.-- Reading a sentence that begins "How took the deck suspiciously..." is odd, and requires you to re-read the sentence after a false start. This happens because one of Guy's sensitive (perhaps gay?) nephews is named "Howard" but is regularly referred to as "How" to distinguish him from his bullying father.

It was hard to accept the background of this book – no spoilers here, this is all expressed at the start of the novel: Sabine, who was lucky enough to grow up with virtually perfect parents, was beautiful and intelligent. She was studying to be an architect, but fell in love with a magician, Parsifal, and gave up her career to become his assistant and companion. He, though, is gay, and there is no romance. It’s a good life, though; they travel, they share, they’re great friends. She remains in this relationship for decades. Parsifal, meanwhile, falls in love with another man, and the three of them become great friends, sort of the three musketeers. After the two men die, Sabine is alone, desolate, empty. But then she receives a shock. As well as she thought she knew Parsifal, she finds that his life before they met was absolutely different from what he had told her.That’s the beginning. It took me a bit to get past that, because everyone was too perfect, too wonderful, too loving, too generous, too creative, too angelic. Did I mention they were also filthy rich?Okay, I will accept that we are seeing the past as Sabine feels it in her pain. Everything was perfect, as long as it lasted. Or maybe it really was magic. After all, she has magical dreams where she communicates with the dead and receives comfort and counsel.Throughout, we have Ann Patchett’s gorgeous writing and character analysis to savor. This lady can write. Sabine first has outsiders, strangers, come to her – people who knew Parsifal before he was Parsifal. Then she is moved to a different environment, far out of her comfort zone. We feel every beat of Sabine’s heart, as well as that of the people she becomes involved with. I feel as if I would recognize Sabine if I saw her walking down the street.Four-and-a-half stars.

This is a hard review for me to write because I found myself equally loving and hating this novel. Although Ann Patchett writes beautifully, I felt that this story was way to long and fell into redundancy half way through. This is the story of woman dealing with the biggest loss of her life. It follows the life of Sabine after she suddenly loses her beloved husband, Paricfal to an aneurysm. While trying to digest the grief that has overwhelmed her, Sabine finds out that Paricfal had a family that he never told her about. A mother and sisters that she thought were dead. She meets them and they all try to handle the loss of this amazing man togheather.What sets this story apart from other 'loss' books is that its not an ordinary situation of a wife losing a husband, (although that can never be ordinary..._) but it looks at grief from another angle. What if you were a wife who was never physical with your husband. Can you feel the loss as much, or do you feel it more? I loved exploring that question in this book. But I felt that it rambled way to much. It was as though Ms. Patchett had a certain idea and could never really bring it to fruition on paper, so she wrote around it as much as she could . I felt like I was reading in circles at time, and then just stagnated at others. Sabine is an admirable character flushed out in many areas, except the most important one. You never really understand why she loves Paricfal so much. Everything she describes about him is on the superficial side. It never seemed like she got under the surface...so how could she love him so deeply? Her concept of love is still in question at the end of the novel. I felt that ending was unfinished. It just stops, and you are left feeling like there should be more.This novel raises as many questions about the characters as it answers. This was a long read for me. It took me over a week to finish it. Many details, but at times, truly beautiful writing. Sad and depressing in many areas as well.