The Magician's Assistant

Three and a half stars. I enjoyed this imaginative novel, beautifully written by Ann Patchett.

The story is written from the point of view of Sabine, who had been the assistant of Parsifal the Magician for a couple decades. Theirs was a very close, unusual relationship. After Parsifal dies, Sabine's grief is complicated by all that he has deliberately left unsaid during their many years together.

I enjoyed Sabine's dreams, most of which were conversations with Phan, who had been Parsifal's lover before falling ill with AIDS. These nighttime visits are both flashbacks of good memories and soothing comfort for Sabine. So even though Phan has died offstage, before this novel begins, he is still a presence in Sabine's life, as well.

As the novel begins, she is newly alone in a sprawling, majestic home in Los Angeles, when she begins to learn things about Parsifal that he's kept back, possibly even from Phan. And so the story begins...

There are some very nice, magical touches to this story. Patchett's description of The Magic Castle (which I'd like to see someday) and some of their tricks, including my very favorite card trick (called Out of This World), are delightful.

However, if I were a Midwesterner, especially a Nebraskan, I might feel a bit offended; the author did depict these people with an awkward, hickish brush, at least in the beginning. Also, the pacing was not perfect. There were a couple times I felt the story was dragging a bit, though it could easily be argued that this was important for the effect of contrasting daily life in Los Angeles with the same amount of time in Alliance, Nebraska. If so, I GET IT.

Anyway, not to say too much, I would recommend this because it is an interesting story, well told.

3.5 stars.

The main character, Sabine, is very talented. Among her talents: stage magic, performance, fine carpet sales, and architecture. However, she lacks the insight, the confidence, and the ability to reflect on her motivations, behavior, and desires that would be necessary for her to explore and develop her talents -- and her life and independence -- to their fullest. Thus she is a magician's assistant, not a magician; she builds architectural models to others' specifications, but is not an architect; and she has spent 20 years in love with, in a platonic relationship with, and eventually married to a gay man -- the magician she assists -- who is very happy with a long-term partner who is pointedly unlike her in every way. She doesn't know herself at all. (Frankly, I really wanted to pack her off to a therapist who would help her develop a little bit of introspection.)

HERE BE SPOILERS (continue at your peril).


















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It turns out Sabine didn't really know the magician either: three months after his death, she learns that his family didn't actually die in a freak accident -- his mother and sisters are still very much alive -- and his childhood was abusive, violent, traumatic, and tragic. And he definitely wasn't from Connecticut. So off she goes to his childhood home in small town Nebraska, hoping she will understand why the magician spent a lifetime lying to her about his past. In Nebraska, she witnesses up close the cycle of abuse that continues to traumatize the magician's family.

Sabine doesn't change. Although she's able to move past the worst of her grief over the course of the book, she doesn't actually learn anything about herself, or examine her motivations or behavior in any way. She becomes somewhat obsessed with the magician's older sister and (sort of? maybe?) begins a romantic relationship with her -- but it's obvious to the reader, although not to Sabine, that the sister is a stand-in for the magician: she looks just like him and shares his mannerisms. At the end of the book, Sabine decides to pack the sister and the sister's children back to L.A. with her, where they will return to the magician's house; essentially, to the magician's life. Because it's blatantly obvious, even to Sabine, that she doesn't have a life of her own, and the house is the physical representation of her lack of autonomy and independence. She has essentially turned the magician's sister into the magician but this time has managed to insert herself more fully into the magician's life. Win?

Problem 1: Is Sabine gay? Bisexual? Does she know one way or the other? Has she ever thought about it at all? Her attachment to a man with whom she couldn't have a complete relationship prevented her from ever exploring this issue. Is that why she chose -- consciously, or unconsciously -- a safe and unfulfilling relationship? Not addressed in any way. Not even after she and the sister kiss.

Problem 2: Okay, maybe Sabine's sexuality (or, at least, sexual beahvior) isn't addressed because The Magician's Assistant isn't about Sabine's self-discovery at all, and instead is about Sabine failing to discover herself. (Y'know: negative cycles don't just repeat in small town Nebraska; they also repeat among the "enlightened" and "fortunate" people who've chosen a glittering life in sunny California.) Except this seems like such a cop-out. And I guess I would expect her failure to be contrasted with someone else's successful self-discovery, or at least for Sabine to come close to self-discovery and then to pull away at the last second, but neither of these things happens.

Problem 3: What I would have learned about Nebraska from this book if I didn't know better: in Nebraska, familial abuse (including violence) is business as usual; the community doesn't care, and the family openly accepts it. Multiple characters actually say (paraphrased): "That's just how it is, no one can leave because there's nowhere to go." The magician's mother, who was viciously abused by her husband, says of her daughter who is also being abused, "I don't like how Kitty's husband treats her but no one tells Kitty what to do." And no one ever calls it abuse. I call bullshit. There are 10,000 people in the community. SOMEONE must be smart enough to figure out what's going on and to advocate for the victims.

Problem 4: Okay, so the people of Nebraska are stoic morons and abuse is just a way of life (cycles, blah blah blah). Well, thank goodness an outsider shows up to shed some light on the tragic cycle affecting 1 family! Small changes matter too! Well, not so much. Sabine basically accepts the family's rhetoric and language without judgement. She won't be afraid of Kitty's husband, he's just a bully. Sabine the anthropologist.

Problem 5: Wait, that's the end? There's no conclusion of any sort. I turned a page and was quite surprised to discover there was no more. I guess this shouldn't be surprising in a book where nothing changes and no one learns anything.

After all this, you're probably wondering why I gave this book any stars at all. It's true that as an examination of cycles of behavior it's clumsy and as a journey of self-discovery it's ineffective. But as a depiction of grief it's magnificent: Ann Patchett adeptly captures the flatness, time dilation, and exhaustion that characterize depression. And I love her use of language. I'd read her grocery lists; they're probably the most lyrical grocery lists ever written. Yes, The Magician's Assistant has problems. But I quite liked it anyway.