The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett (1998-09-17)

I usually love Ann Patchett writing. State of Wonder is one my favorite books. This book was a little weird to me. I read it to the end but often asked myself: What is this about? Why write this at all? It is fiction and of course is not based on reality but still this story felt absurd to me. I had just read her last book "Commonwealth" before going back to this book that I had ordered a while ago, and I loved it. So in conclusion, Ann Patchett is a terrific writer, but this one is not among her best.

This was the only Ann Patchett novel I hadn't read. It came promptly, in perfect condition. Whether you read a novel for the story or for the development of the characters or for the joy or reading a great writer's words, this novel delivers.

This is a beautiful book. At first I didn't understand the ending but it makes total sense on thinking it over. She is in love with a gay man so she ends up with his sister...this is a twist you don't see coming but it really does make sense. I love Patchett's lack of judgement about her characters. It is infectious. It makes me a better person, I imagine.

I really like story line of the book. I loved all of the characters. However, the ending left me hanging. Not in a good way like wanting more but in an unfinished way. I got no closure to the character stories.

The Magician's Assistant
This was my first read of a Patchett book and I enjoyed it. The characters were interesting and the story was intriguing.

By the description I thought it was going to be a much different book. The story was slow moving & things were revealed sluggishly. The author jumped between past,present and imaginary with no warning or separation of thoughts. I finished it entirely out of boredom.

Frankly I had forgotten this book lived in my Kindle. Saw Ann Patchett interview Diane Rheem on KET recently. Remembered I had read and enjoyed Bel Canto. The title and cover online jogged my memory.

I love when serendipity leads me to read a new book. Surprising tension and unforgettable characters. Now Sabine and Parsifal and Rabbit are partly mine.

I love Ann Patchett's writing and loved this book until the ending. Way too abrupt and unbelievable. Also the love affair developing at the end was not believable either. I'd recommend you read Bel Canto or This Is The Story of A Happy Marriage.

Perfect Patchett style but a VERY thorough introspective and Geographic search by The Magician's Asst. for answers and reasons for love and life's choices and the satisfaction of curiosities. Compelling characters n rich dialogues. Sabine shines!

Not really what I expected. Rather dull, but a completely fine novel. I don't feel like I want the hours I spent reading back, but I wouldn't recommend the book to someone else unless they really had nothing else to read.

But a bit disappointing. The plot was a bit tedious, and the book was separated into two sections rather than chapters, making it hard to find logical stopping points. This was my first Ann Patchett book, and it may be my last.

Depressing! I have read other Ann Patchett books, which I enjoyed, but this book was very depressing plus the end was terrible. I will lay off her books for awhile and read something more uplifting!

I was very disappointed with this book. It was slow, convoluted, and hard to follow. It was repetitious and hard to understand why the author was constantly repeating information about the characters. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

Product is as advertised except no mention was made in the description of 3 stamped lines that were blacked out with a Sharpie on the inside of the front and rear covers. The blacked out material indicates the book is a product of a particular named library.

I am amazed at the 'average 4-star rating' listed for this book. It is flat out the best book of loss ever. I send this book to anyone who has lost a loved one. It is on my Desert Island book list, for sure; and I am a two-book-a-week fiction junkie. Bittersweet, haunting, hopeful, uplifting, funny.....the full package.

I did not care about these characters at all. I did not feel any sympathy for the woman who was in love with a man who could not love her back in a passionate and romantic way. It seemed so strange to me that a woman could be so obsessed with a man that she would actually marry him and live with him and his lover for years. The story jumped all over the place between dreams and reality.No one should be ashamed of theiri sexuality and hide it. I got the impression that was what the characters in this book did.I can understand maybe not being truthful to society but if you are not true to yourself what kind of satisfaction can you get from your life? I think it would be naive to think anyone could and this book proves it. If this is someone's idea of reality they have wasted their life.

I did not care about these characters at all. I did not feel any sympathy for the woman who was in love with a man who could not love her back in a passionate and romantic way. It seemed so strange to me that a woman could be so obsessed with a man that she would actually marry him and live with him and his lover for years. The story jumped all over the place between dreams and reality.No one should be ashamed of theiri sexuality and hide it. I got the impression that was what the characters in this book did.I can understand maybe not being truthful to society but if you are not true to yourself what kind of satisfaction can you get from your life? I think it would be naive to think anyone could and this book proves it. If this is someone's idea of reality they have wasted their life.

Wondering if you should take this book up? Well, if you are not feeling fine in your own skin, if you are one unhappy inhabitant of a small town or if you simply hate Nebraska, that book was meant for you. If not, it has nothing to offer - no story, no characters, not even nice language. So keep away. If you have already started it and you wonder if it's worth your time, drop it - think of all the nice books waiting for you out there while the clock is ticking!

Gave this book four stars. Loved the way it reads, the tone and pace couldn't be better. I was drawn into the story in a, well, magical way. The ending seemed a little weak, hence the four stars. All in all a good book and well worth reading.

I loved this book's beginning. I bragged about it to friends, but as soon as Sabine got to Nebraska, the characters absolutely fell apart and the storyline died a swifter death than Parsifal. All of the drama was built up to an abrupt end that went NOWHERE. I was so mad. The story had no real conclusion and the characters no resolution at all to any of the drama. I wanted to know what happened to each character, but instead I just got dropped. I actually thought someone had taken the final pages out of my copy of the book! It was like one of those "series" movies you go to and you just know at the end they are preparing for the next sequel and not the end of this story.
Save your money.

This is one of the strangest books I've ever read. Technically, the summary was correct, but what was left out was that the book was about the main character, Sabine (the magician's assistant), who was married to the gay magician, Parcifal, and lived with him and his lover, and at the beginning of the book the two gay men had already both died of aids, or something, before the story even began. My opening statement may be somewhat of a spoiler, but this story was not the magical, light, moving-on read that the summary implies - and if I had known what the book was about, I would not have read it.

It was a very depressing book; the feeling of it was that the real story had already happened before the book started, and the readers were then just left with the aftermath of what happened. The depression just went on and on and on; the main character did not grow or develop or get into a better situation throughout the whole book. We learned more about Parcifal's life throughout the book, and that was more depressing then Sabine's grief.

As I said, if I had had any idea what the book was really about, I would not have read it at all. This is the first book I've read by this author, and while I think she has talent, I do not like her subject matter and I am not interested in reading any more of her work.

I picked up this book because I have loved everything Ann Patchett has written. I put it down halfway through because it was too damn a propos – the protagonist is a California-raised Jewish-American princess who discovers that her adored but gay husband has a family in Nebraska he never told her about – and she resolves to understand this part of his past.

I was still reeling from the bursting of my West Coast bubble after the 2016 Presidential election. I could not stand another analysis, even disguised as fiction, of how different the viewpoint on life and ethics and what matters most might be between the Left Coast and Fly-over Country.

But I went back to the book. Ann Patchett is so gifted at putting the reader inside the heads of her characters that she brought me back. And this is a healing book. There is ugliness, and ignorance, and misogyny and violence. But there is also commonality here. And there is the saving grace of loving women.

This was Ann Patchett’s first novel. Maybe it is not her best. But it is terribly, frighteningly relevant.

I so wanted to like this book, if for no other reason that I spent a small chunk of time on it. However, it just never hit a "page-turner" pace.

Sabine was somewhat interesting but always seems lacking depth. My favorite section was LA and her meeting his unknown family. I was captivated by the thought of how different their hometowns were. The dream sequences seemed significant and as if they were foretelling something major to come.

When Sabine goes to Alliance is where I started reading less enthusiastically. Sabine seemed stronger yet her relationship with Kitty did not seem to truly fit the character I thought I knew in LA nor the character the Phan saw. Speaking of whom, the dream sequences nearly vanished altogether except the chaotic one near the end. As for that, the end was truly disappointing as there were too many empty spaces to truly manufacture my own scenario.

Anyway, I would not recommend it unless you just want to kill time and have few other books from which to choose.

The book was mildly entertaining, enough that I kept reading it to see if Sabine would ever get off the pity pot and do something healthy for herself. Imagine my disappointment when the book just trailed off.

No grand realization, no discernible character growth. The wrap-up of the story felt like Anne Patchett got bored with Sabine too, so she just waved her literary wand and said, "Ta-da! The End. (Something great just happened, and if you can't figure out what 'it' is, dear reader, then you're just not deep enough.)"

I guess I'm not "deep" enough. Oh well.

This is a very strange novel, which makes it quite difficult to review. There are some great parts to it and some really bad parts to it. Since I’m not quite sure how to structure this, I’ve decided to start with the good parts, and then come out with the stuff that I did not like.

I would divide this book into three parts: There is the writing; there is the plot; and there are the gratuitous insults. The writing is absolutely superb! I could see the scenes that were being described; could feel the emotions of the main character; and enjoyed the descriptive ways in which she went from describing events to the dream sequences that helped tie things together. All of this was good and I really enjoyed it.

However – and in this book that’s a huge one! – the plot is really strange. We follow Sabine – a 42 year old widow – from the moment when her husband dies until some weeks later. Sabine was a Magician’s Assistant to Parsifal. Parsifal was also her husband. Although they had been together and inseparable for twenty two years, their love was completely platonic as Parsifal was very gay and had no interest in any kind of sexual relationship with Sabine. Parsifal was also deeply in love with another gay man by the name of Phan. This incredible triangle is what forms the basis of the story as first Phan dies of AIDS (it’s not spelled out, per se, but the timing of the story, and the manner of his illness make it very clear). Parsifal is also infected and when he starts a course of tests, dies of a brain aneurism. This leaves Sabine alone and depressed.

Parsifal has always told Sabine that his family is from the East Coast and that all of the family but him dies in a tragic car accident. Sabine has no reason to mistrust him so you can imagine her shock when their lawyer lets her know that Parsifal left money in his will to his mother and two sisters who are living in Alliance, Nebraska! When Sabine meets the family members, it turns out that the stories that Parsifal told were almost all lies and there are multiple stories behind the stories and trickery galore. Just like magic tricks, there is what you think you know, and then there is the truth. Sabine ends up going to Nebraska to find out more about Parsifal’s family and life and does. At this stage, at what seems like the middle of the story, the novel ends.

To add strange items to the mix, Parsifal and his gay partner are very loving and Sabine is described as being heterosexual. So is her sister-in-law who is Parsifal’s twin. However, within moments of their meeting, Sabine is lusting after the sister and the novel edges closer and closer to a Lesbian relationship, and when it ends, there is a bit of a promise that this will get consummated in such a fashion.

The part that was most annoying was the superior manner that the author chose to describe the differences between Sabine’s life in Los Angeles and Parsifal’s family in Nebraska. This is where the gratuitous insults came in and they never stopped. Descriptions of Nebraska as being enveloped in a three-week snow storm, with daily snow falls of several inches; deep drifts; howling winds; and vast amount of emptiness. Description of the town’s highlight as being the local WalMart where everyone shops, and everyone know everyone. Everyone in the town knowing all the stories of everyone’s business. Even stating that it’s absolutely normal that two out of the three males who are met while in Nebraska are wife abusers and violent sorts. By contrast, everything in Los Angeles is beauty and light, gentleness, and gentility. As someone who has been to both places, what a crock! Is it not possible to write a novel that does not describe mid-western women in terms of farm animals? And this is written by a woman!!! Why the putdowns of everything in the Midwest? What did that achieve?

So, after reviewing all this, I see this novel as a mis-applied effort where the good work of the author was wasted in a goofy plot with a large sprinkling of hubris thrown in. For these reasons, this book barely deserves a three start rating!

Ann Patchett’s “The Magician’s Assistant” is a very creative well-written story. The plot is very unusual. The story centers on Sabine Parsifal, a recently widowed magician’s Assistant. Her husband was Parsifal, the famous magician and rug store owner whose homosexual lover Phan has passed away shortly before his own demise. After his death, Sabine makes startling discoveries about Parsifal, and herself, as she journeys from sun-drenched California to snow enveloped Nebraska. Pachett repeats her tact from an earlier book; she just ends the story in the middle of the action. But this time, the story contains so much that you can easily imagine the story going on without the frustration of a facile ending. I do recommend this book as a highly enjoyable reading experience.

Sabine is devastated when her husband and partner Parsifal dies unexpectedly. As an AIDS patient, she always knew that he would die, but she believed they had a couple more years. While the aneurysm that does kill him is blessed quick in comparison to the slow decline of AIDS, she struggles to come to terms with his loss. When his lawyer reveals that Parsifal has a hidden past that no one in his life knows about, this sends her even more off kilter and leads her to question everything about her life.

While the fantastic storytelling ability of Patchett is still present in this book, it ultimately just didn't stand up to the amazing Bel Canto. I was intrigued by the storyline, and like Sabine curious to discover who Parsifal really was. All of the characters were well-written and realistically flawed, though I felt like we never really got to know any of them except Sabine. I did feel the ending was a bit out of place and didn't understand some of the choices the author made. I felt that Bel Canto had this same problem, so perhaps it's just a failing of the author to know how to properly end a book. In the end though, I would recommend this book, though if you are a fan of Bel Canto, you should lower your expectations.

This book is really worth 5 stars, but here is why I didn't give that 5th star: it took a bit to get into the book because it felt like the book started in the middle of the story and then periodically went backward in the story to catch you up. That is fine, as long as you get enough back story at the beginning, but I didn't really get a grasp of the whys and wherefores until about halfway through the book. But once I was caught up, I almost couldn't put it down!
Now the end of the book...I will not be a spoiler for those of you planning to read this book, but the book ended so abruptly that I actually got steamed! I felt like there was too much unresolved and found myself hoping there might be a sequel in order to provide an end of the story.
I enjoyed this book and will buy more Ann Patchett books!

Sabine is Parsifal the Magician's assistant and has loved him in spite of his being gay and having a deep relationship with Phan. In the last year of Parsifal's life, he marries Sabine. He has told her that his parents are dead, but his will informs her that this is not true. She then finds them in Alliance, Nebraska, and decides to spend time with them to know more about her husband and why he denied knowing them.

I've read several of Ms. Patchett's books, and I like how she develops her characters and puts them into very human situations. I like this one, but my favorite is "Run." If you haven't read any of her books, I would recommend that you read one of them.

The novel begins with the death of Parsifal, the magician of the title, with his ‘assistant’ and wife, Sabine by his side. However, this was a marriage between a gay man and a woman who had adored him for the previous 22 years. Parsifal, who died of an aneurism but was already holding a warrant signed by death after being diagnosed with AIDS, wanted to give Sabine a financial as well as an emotional stability by marrying her after Parsifal’s Vietnamese lover Phan had died a short time before.
A few days after the funeral Parsifal’s lawyer informs Sabine that Parsifal had left a considerable amount of money to his mother and two sisters. Parsifal was wealthy and now so was Sabine so the money being left to Parsifal’s family was of no consequence to Sabine. But what was of consequence was that Sabine was not aware of Parsifal’s family as Parsifal had never talked about his family and had led Sabine to believe that they were dead.
Soon after, Parsifal’s family visit Los Angeles to not only meet Sabine but to visit Parsifal’s (or Guy as he was christened), grave and hopefully have Sabine show them some of Parsifal’s favourite places. During this time Parsifal’s mother, Dot Fetters, invites Sabine to visit her and her family in the small town of Alliance in Nebraska and to attend her daughter’s wedding. Sabine agrees and during the visit she discovers that though she had known and loved Parsifal for 22 years and believed she knew everything about him it soon transpires that Parsifal had failed to illuminate Sabine about his early life that would define who he would become as a man.
I am going to write up front that this a delightful book that injects one with feelings of joy. The subject matter may involve death and its black tendrils that reach out and attempt to suffocate those left behind who are trying to come to terms with their loss. But this is not a didactic novel that attempts to give answers as to how to cope with death and find what the American’s refer to as ‘closure’. No, this novel is partly about how our young informative years can either define our adult life in such a way as to either set one on a road to destruction or that one cannot allow an unhappy childhood to mould us into unhappy adults. Philip Larkin may have been correct when he wrote, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do” but as this novel attempts to prove one can break this cycle of being f****d up.
As Sabine becomes involved in the lives of Parsifal’s parents each side draws sustenance and strength from the other and in so doing allows them to become more than they are, more than they would have been if there orbits hadn’t began to circle each other with the gravity of Parsifal’s death.
Ann Patchett’s style of writing is both luminous and absorbing. Here is her describing Los Angeles;

“Sabine was glad to show off her city. Los Angeles, she felt, was maligned because it was misunderstood. It was the beautiful girl you resented, the one who was born with straight teeth and good skin. The one with the natural social graces and family money who surprised you by dancing the Argentine tango at a wedding. While Iowa struggled through the bitter knife of winter and New York folded in crime and the South remained backwards and divided, Los Angeles pushed her slender feet into the sand along the Pacific and took in the sun.”

The author shows a considerable understanding of family dynamics. Her descriptions of childhood and the all encompassing, all pervading parental fear of a child being hurt, disabled or lost is sublime.

“Sabine’s mother tells the story of hearing a scream that was the sound only a dying person would make. She thought a wolf or a bear, animals that had never before come into the city of Montreal, was at that moment in her yard, eating her daughter alive. But when Sabine ran to her, it was only the snow she was screaming at, and her mother said she understood.”

Within this story of death, love and families is humour. It is a subtle humour that is as beguiling as any well performed magic trick. Ann Patchett has written a compellingly lyrical novel that any reader will find hard to ignore.

Ann Patchett is definitely a great writer. Her prose is smooth, lovely, and lyrical. But I wouldn't call her a great storyteller. It has been a long time since I put down a book without finishing it, but I'm not going to finish this one. It isn't engaging me, and when I stop to think why, it's this: I'm 112 pages into it, and I still have no idea what Sabine's goal is. She has grief, sure, but she's getting along with it just fine. She has a very comfortable life. She's _reacting_ to events around her, but does not seem to be motivated to actually do or achieve anything on her own. I have no idea what she wants. And because she's not striving to achieve any particular goal, there are no evident obstacles for her to overcome. No challenges to face down. Nothing pushing her to grow and change.

As far as I can see, Sabine isn't even trying to do anything. How can I root for her when she is so inert? I can't. And I can't be captivated by a character who I can't root for. After 112 pages, I feel like I deserve to know what the character's major goals are. But I don't, and my to-be-read pile is large, so I'm moving on.

Ann Patchett has written a lovely, unique story about a woman who was a magician’s assistant, who was in love with the magician, who was married to the magician shortly before he died. However, the magician was gay.

Sabine is a complex character, written with such quiet ferocity, that I was fascinated by her. After the magician’s death, she learns about his family in Alliance, Nebraska. His mother, sisters, nephews. People he had kept from her as long as they’d been together. She travels to Nebraska in the dead of winter after the mother and 1 sister had visited her in Los Angeles.

The story does not have chapters. It flows from scene to scene like sleight of hand, it’s like you hardly notice the change in landscape from a perfect LA to snow-ridden Alliance until you’re in the middle of it.

The Fetters are people I have met and known. Sabine is someone I think I am sometimes. The way she maneuvers through the relationships with her new family is lovely, tiring, and true. She learns horrific truths and comes through with a potential new love, new friends, new family.

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's will: His mother and two sisters whom he always spoke of as dead are alive and well in Nebraska.

Lonely and paralyzed with grief, Sabine becomes involved with the Fetters women. She leave sunny California and ventures out to the bleak, wintry plains of the Midwest. There, she peels back the layers of her late husband's life and starts her own healing process. At night, she is visited in her dreams by Phan, Parsifal's Vietnamese lover, who provides guidance and reports on the afterlife.

As the members of Parsifal's family seek her help, she realizes that she is no longer just an assistant. Using her new-found strength and confidence, she is able to work her own brand of magic and unchain her husband's family from a painful past. Dot, Parsifal's mother, often comments on her ability: "I don't mean to compare, but you're a lot better at this magic stuff than he ever was...you've got something extra."

Published over fifteen years ago, The Magician's Assistant addresses several social issues, among them homosexuality and abuse, that are still relevant today.

I thought the story was intriguing. A beautiful woman is so in love with a gay man, Parsifal, a magician, that she spends over twenty years with him and his lover , suspending her own natural desires for a normal sexual relationship. Parsifal marries Sabine so she can inherit his estate when he dies. When both men die, it appears she will spend the rest of her life mourning him. From here we discover that Parsifal had lied to Sabine, letting her believe he had no family when in actuality his abandoned family (mother and siblings) were very much alive in Nebraska and mourning the son/brother who left at the age of 18 because of a tragedy, never to contact them again. The story revolves around Sabine's discovery of these people as both Sabine and the family try to understand the man they all loved. SPOILER: In the end we are left hanging and wondering if Sabine has discovered she is actually a lesbian or if her love for Parsifal was so intense that she is willing to accept his sister, Kitty, as a lover because she is so much like her beloved Parsifal. Ann Patchett writes beautifully, but I found the story dragged out with too many magic tricks and dream sequences and never reached a satisfying conclusion.

The best thing about this book, hands down, is the character of Dot Fetters. It is a triumph. She is one of the most fully-realized, three-dimensional, easy to visualize, easy to know characters I can think of in contemporary fiction. In Dot, Patchett has created a complete person – all of her actions and words ring completely natural, realistic and true. The rest of the book – plot, stock characterizations, odd structure, endless homely detail – not so much.

This is not unlike Patchett’s first book, ‘The Patron Saint of Liars” – particularly with regard to the endless nothing that coils on and on and yet keeps you reading. (Not sure how that could be, but it is). The insistence on the routines and repetitions of daily life is obviously part of what Patchett is trying to emphasize. (Even in a fine piece of work like “Bel Canto” – the same yada-yada-yada seems to define her style, and perhaps her intention.)

The situations are similar, too, the California girl who loves to drive, the removal to an unfamiliar place, etc. “”Magician” is superior in that the main character (Sabine) is, despite the bizarre circumstances of her life and (not entirely believable) love, is warmer and more fully drawn than Rose in “Liars” and with a lot less reason. But it’s Dot Fetters that makes the difference. She is the brightest spot in this unending narrative for which the flat, blank Nebraska winter landscape must have been intended as a metaphor – one that didn’t quite come off.

This book starts off with a promise of hope and falls woefully short. The subject, a beautiful, intelligent woman falls hopelessly in love with a fully committed homosexual man. The plot begins when after his death she discovers he had a secret childhood past that now intrudes upon her present. She embraces his childhood family in an effort to better understand the man she’d loved for so long. The “magic” and its explanations are neither enlightening nor fun.

She's a magician's assistant, the magician is gay and attached to his lover, she hangs around for decades, the lover gets sick and dies, the magician, himself sick, finally marries his adoring assistant out of some combination of pity and friendship, and he dies. She's relatively young, beautiful and alone with her memories. She discovers he'd concealed from her his entire past, including the existence of his family that he'd claimed was dead. And then the story begins.

An intriguing plot, and Patchett certainly can write well enough--I wasn't nearly as enthralled with her style as some seem to have been, but sure, she can write. The plot develops s-l-o-w-l-y. We are in the assistant's head throughout the novel, hear all of her thoughts, which frankly aren't all that interesting; a person very intimate with grief may find her easier to relate to, but to me she seemed obsessed with the deceased magician beyond my comprehension--or interest. In fact, she may well be the least interesting character in the book, yet we have to spend all our time with her, which I found somewhat of a drag. Her own statements to the other characters are always short, often sour, and dull, so we wait for someone else to say or do something to move things along and hold our interest.

I give credit to Patchett for introducing one plot element I found a well-done surprise, and it perked up my interest for another hundred pages, but generally, she broadcasts her intentions without much subtlety, so by the end, when everything has happened just like we'd known for quite a while that it would, I felt relief--finally, yes, of course.

As a novella of maybe half the length, it would have been a stronger work, but for me, there was too much dead air.

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 magical prose. Really, I couldn't put the book down. In the hands of another writer, this could easily have become a mind-numbing book. But here, Sabine and Phan and Parsifal and his family come to life.

Sabine often dreams about Parsifal and Phan, Parsifal's lover. The dream sequences were very good too, captured perfectly. I would say I liked this one better than Bel Canto because it's not completely devoid of action. Sabine is a complex character, though I don't exactly understand why she would marry Parsifal, when he is gay. That seems like a sad state to be in; married to a man who doesn't love you the way you love him. But. Because of the writing, I liked this one.

All of my reviews can be read at my blog novareviews.blogspot.com.

I thoroughly enjoyed Ann Patchett's Bel Canto; so I decided to read The Magician's Assistant. The story started off slow and a bit unusual. Parsifal, the magician died. Sabine his devoted assistant is devastated. The man she loved for the past twenty years is suddenly gone. Parsifal loved Sabine. But his love for her had never been consummated; because Parsifal was"gay".

With Parsifal's death and the reading of the will, Sabine finds out that Parsifal had a secret. The story is the unraveling of the secret and the backstory of Parsifal and his family. The family Sabine thought were dead. Patchett weaves Parsifal's past into the present as Sabine meets and becomes involved with the magician's family.

As with "Bel Canto" Patchett offers enough intrigue to keep the reader engaged. We come to know the pain carried by this prosaic MidWestern family; and see the healing as Sabine and Parsifal's family become closer. Sabine's relationship with Pasifal's sister Kitty insinuates another layer into the satisfying story.

This turned out to be a fairly ordinary read - nothing like the title would suggest. I read it while traveling but I don’t think I would have kept going if at home and with other options available. I found the writing prosaic and the author relied too much on cliched family dramas to make it interesting. Everyone was described as “beautiful” over and over. It was odd and somewhat annoying after a while.

Life is about love, loss, boredom, fantasy, highs and lows, and then stick extended family in it and you come up with Crazy Stew. Well, Ann Patchett really knows how to balance it all seamlessly with the most wonderful characters ever. I got sucked into these two completely different settings of family life, and rooted for both of them like they were all mine. A highly recommended read!

I loved this book for many reasons...one of which was introducing me to the world of magic. I liked how she wove between dreams and reality....the second half of the book in Nebraska is gripping. My only disappointment was the ending. The book just..ended. It needed another chapter with the main character back in L.A. But the writing is lovely and I like very much how Sabine gradually learns about the real man she thought she knew, but didn't.

There are many brilliantly realized scenes in "The Magician's Assistant" and readers who enjoy strong writing will enjoy the whole book. The plot is well described elsewhere--the story of a woman who realizes her now-dead husband had a family he kept hidden from her. "When Parsifal died she lost the rest of his life, but now she had stumbled on eighteen years. Eighteen untouched years that she could have; early, forgotten volumes of her favorite work. A childhood that could be mined month by month. Parsifal could not get older, but what about younger?"

Mix in the role of the main character (she is his assistant as his magician-stage persona) and the fact that he preferred men for partners and, well, I think Ann Patchett is one of the few out there who could pull this off. Even Sabine's paying job is an odd one: she crafts miniature model homes and buildings for architects. Yet Patchett makes Sabine just another regular person with just another normal life.

The structure is wonderfully simple. Husband dies. She discovers his hidden family. They come to visit Los Angeles and learn about his wife and life. She (Sabine) goes to visit Nebraska and learn about his life and what propelled him to keep it so secret. Along the way, the Nebraskans learn a little about magic and Sabine learns much, much more about who she really is. There is blood, there are magic tricks learned and taught, there are slowly-revealed secrets that tear at the fabric of her new family. If there aren't enough subtle parallels between the two distinctly different settings, each set of scenes includes a trip to the hospital.

Three scenes jumped out at me. First, the inter-woven scene as Sabine and her new family watch the old Johnny Carson reel of their act on The Tonight Show. Patchett flips back and forth from what's on the VCR and what Sabine recalls from experiencing the act as one of the performers, on stage. The split-view on one page is a magic act by itself. Second is the Wal-Mart shopping scene. The third is the scene where Sabine confronts an angry relative in the snowy street. The actions are driven by a swirl of emotion and logic and every moment is taut.

Sabine is a second-fiddle by nature--both in her role with Parsifal professionally and at home, given her subordinate position in the complicated relationship. Readers wanting more of a take-charge protagonist may not relate to Sabine. But the story is rich, every character is carefully drawn, and the result is a memorable, one-of-a-kind book.

The Sweetness of Intimacy Lost: A Book Review of The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett, Harcourt Brace & Company, paperback p. 356.
This tale opens as Parsifal, the magician, dies. We are told of his previous day of an intense headache, and the short, claustrophobic stay in the MRI chamber. Parsifal's death by stroke was unexpected; he was preparing for an impending death due to AIDS-related complications, as did his love Phan, six months prior. At his death, he is accompanied by his wife, Sabine, his Magician's Assistant of 22 years and his wife of 6 months. Parsifal married her so that she would be taken care of following his death. Thus we enter an intriguing, unusual love story.
The shock of the death doesn't seem to dissipate throughout the book. The impact is compounded by Parsifal's previous life which comes to light upon his death. He had lied about his past.
This was a lovely story which unfolded beautifully, and is best unrecounted here; a gradual, descent into love lost and all the intimacy which goes with it awaits you, the reader.
Excellent use of dream sequences are skillfully used to bring Sabine to a place of resolution with Phan's life and death as well as her best friend and beloved Parsifal's death. Both Phan and Parsifal visit Sabine in her dream state; they are the beloved, the guides, the friends, the family, and they lend a voice of sanity to the situation she enters in Nebraska.
We go back in time to the 1960's, childhood, move forward to LA 1990's settings including an appearance on the Johnny Carson show, which is replayed nightly, in the home of Parsifal's family of origin, in Nebraska. The 1990's also hold memories of magical performances, the parties, the gay and glamorous LA life, the marriage party, the selection of the burial triad plot for Phan, Parsifal and Sabine, the anchoring goodness of Sabine's mother and father and pet Rabbit. All lend humanness to this bittersweet tale of unconventional love, remorse, forgiveness and letting go. The resulting relationship Sabine develops with Parsifal's family, is believable, with bouts confusion interspersed with bursts of clarity and well-written dialogue. " I don't care how you worked out being married. What I care about is that you knew him, you were there with him. You were with him all those years when I wasn't. You were with him when he died." Kitty stopped and considered this. "Were you?" she said, "right there with him?"
The ending stays true to form, leaving the reader with the sense of life might go on, or might just slide back. It leaves the hopeful room to hope and room for the despairing to despair..

I was a big fan of Patchett's beautiful, understated Bel Canto. This book had an intriguing setup: a woman is married to a magician who loves her but is gay. After he passes away, she learns that the family he claimed was dead is actually still alive.

Unfortunately, once that mystery is resolved, which doesn't take long, Patchett seems to run out of interesting ideas. To be fair, her characters are likable, plausible people, and she has a talent for lovely, understated scenes. But, the story loses much of its tension as soon as the closet runs out skeletons, and turns a little too sentimental. Patchett even goes as far as to include the stilted device of the dead magician giving advice to the protagonist in dreams. This one fell well short of Bel Canto for me -- I do recommend that book if you haven't read it yet.

Life is about love, loss, boredom, fantasy, highs and lows, and then stick extended family in it and you come up with Crazy Stew. Well, Ann Patchett really knows how to balance it all seamlessly with the most wonderful characters ever. I got sucked into these two completely different settings of family life, and rooted for both of them like they were all mine. A highly recommended read!

I loved this book for many reasons...one of which was introducing me to the world of magic. I liked how she wove between dreams and reality....the second half of the book in Nebraska is gripping. My only disappointment was the ending. The book just..ended. It needed another chapter with the main character back in L.A. But the writing is lovely and I like very much how Sabine gradually learns about the real man she thought she knew, but didn't.

There are many brilliantly realized scenes in "The Magician's Assistant" and readers who enjoy strong writing will enjoy the whole book. The plot is well described elsewhere--the story of a woman who realizes her now-dead husband had a family he kept hidden from her. "When Parsifal died she lost the rest of his life, but now she had stumbled on eighteen years. Eighteen untouched years that she could have; early, forgotten volumes of her favorite work. A childhood that could be mined month by month. Parsifal could not get older, but what about younger?"

Mix in the role of the main character (she is his assistant as his magician-stage persona) and the fact that he preferred men for partners and, well, I think Ann Patchett is one of the few out there who could pull this off. Even Sabine's paying job is an odd one: she crafts miniature model homes and buildings for architects. Yet Patchett makes Sabine just another regular person with just another normal life.

The structure is wonderfully simple. Husband dies. She discovers his hidden family. They come to visit Los Angeles and learn about his wife and life. She (Sabine) goes to visit Nebraska and learn about his life and what propelled him to keep it so secret. Along the way, the Nebraskans learn a little about magic and Sabine learns much, much more about who she really is. There is blood, there are magic tricks learned and taught, there are slowly-revealed secrets that tear at the fabric of her new family. If there aren't enough subtle parallels between the two distinctly different settings, each set of scenes includes a trip to the hospital.

Three scenes jumped out at me. First, the inter-woven scene as Sabine and her new family watch the old Johnny Carson reel of their act on The Tonight Show. Patchett flips back and forth from what's on the VCR and what Sabine recalls from experiencing the act as one of the performers, on stage. The split-view on one page is a magic act by itself. Second is the Wal-Mart shopping scene. The third is the scene where Sabine confronts an angry relative in the snowy street. The actions are driven by a swirl of emotion and logic and every moment is taut.

Sabine is a second-fiddle by nature--both in her role with Parsifal professionally and at home, given her subordinate position in the complicated relationship. Readers wanting more of a take-charge protagonist may not relate to Sabine. But the story is rich, every character is carefully drawn, and the result is a memorable, one-of-a-kind book.

The Sweetness of Intimacy Lost: A Book Review of The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett, Harcourt Brace & Company, paperback p. 356.
This tale opens as Parsifal, the magician, dies. We are told of his previous day of an intense headache, and the short, claustrophobic stay in the MRI chamber. Parsifal's death by stroke was unexpected; he was preparing for an impending death due to AIDS-related complications, as did his love Phan, six months prior. At his death, he is accompanied by his wife, Sabine, his Magician's Assistant of 22 years and his wife of 6 months. Parsifal married her so that she would be taken care of following his death. Thus we enter an intriguing, unusual love story.
The shock of the death doesn't seem to dissipate throughout the book. The impact is compounded by Parsifal's previous life which comes to light upon his death. He had lied about his past.
This was a lovely story which unfolded beautifully, and is best unrecounted here; a gradual, descent into love lost and all the intimacy which goes with it awaits you, the reader.
Excellent use of dream sequences are skillfully used to bring Sabine to a place of resolution with Phan's life and death as well as her best friend and beloved Parsifal's death. Both Phan and Parsifal visit Sabine in her dream state; they are the beloved, the guides, the friends, the family, and they lend a voice of sanity to the situation she enters in Nebraska.
We go back in time to the 1960's, childhood, move forward to LA 1990's settings including an appearance on the Johnny Carson show, which is replayed nightly, in the home of Parsifal's family of origin, in Nebraska. The 1990's also hold memories of magical performances, the parties, the gay and glamorous LA life, the marriage party, the selection of the burial triad plot for Phan, Parsifal and Sabine, the anchoring goodness of Sabine's mother and father and pet Rabbit. All lend humanness to this bittersweet tale of unconventional love, remorse, forgiveness and letting go. The resulting relationship Sabine develops with Parsifal's family, is believable, with bouts confusion interspersed with bursts of clarity and well-written dialogue. " I don't care how you worked out being married. What I care about is that you knew him, you were there with him. You were with him all those years when I wasn't. You were with him when he died." Kitty stopped and considered this. "Were you?" she said, "right there with him?"
The ending stays true to form, leaving the reader with the sense of life might go on, or might just slide back. It leaves the hopeful room to hope and room for the despairing to despair..

I was a big fan of Patchett's beautiful, understated Bel Canto. This book had an intriguing setup: a woman is married to a magician who loves her but is gay. After he passes away, she learns that the family he claimed was dead is actually still alive.

Unfortunately, once that mystery is resolved, which doesn't take long, Patchett seems to run out of interesting ideas. To be fair, her characters are likable, plausible people, and she has a talent for lovely, understated scenes. But, the story loses much of its tension as soon as the closet runs out skeletons, and turns a little too sentimental. Patchett even goes as far as to include the stilted device of the dead magician giving advice to the protagonist in dreams. This one fell well short of Bel Canto for me -- I do recommend that book if you haven't read it yet.

I love, love, love Ann Patchett's books! This one only 4 stars because Commonwealth is still my favorite. I can't really understand why the endings in all of her books are so abrupt and left up in the air but it seems to be her thing so I'm getting used to it. I plan to read all of her work no matter what they cost-I love her books that much. (I'm on Kindle Unltd. so it's a big deal for me to pay full price!)If you haven't read anything by her then you must start today! She's a brilliant author.

A beautiful book that explore's various types of love, life choices, youth and aging, and the glitz of Los Angeles vs. the down-to-earth lifestyle of a small town in Nebraska. Woven throughout, Patchett skillfully takes the reader through beautifully rendered dream sequences that take on a reality of their own.

This is a book that will leave you wishing it had another 200 pages more!!

Like listening to a story you don't want to end......... I felt like the little boy in Princess Bride, who kept asking "and then what happened??!!" It's an unusual premise, but when love is at the core, who knows what can happen. And this is about a shared love and a love that continues beyond the grave. Beautifully written, so alive you feel you are one of the family. While the premise is bizarre, the more you read, you become one with the tale and it's like a story of your relatives, but more so. We all have those hidden family tales that to an outsider sound completely wacky, but when you are sitting around after a family dinner talking about absent members, they somehow seem to make sense. And you don't need to explain them - they just are. I wish I could thank Ann Patchett personally for telling me this story.

Ann Patchett writes the way writer's dream about being able to write. With "Bel Canto," she saw her career take off, but it's here, with "The Magician's Assistant ," that we see her true ability to convey emotions using such simple language. She truly is one of the great voices of our generation.

The story starts (and according to our narrator) ends with the death of Parsifal, a gay magician whose assistant, Sabine, is the protagonist of the story. What unfolds is her discovery that the Parsifal she knew was a reinvented person who was originally named Guy and lived in Nebraska, a far cry from his lavish lifestyle in L.A. as a magician who had been featured on the Tonight Show and a successful rug merchant. We learn all about what casues him to run away from home and we are provided with insights into what life is like for those individuals who dazzle us with pulling rabbits out of a hat or levitating different people before our very eyes.

The emotional core of the store revolves around Sabine's mourning intersecting with Guy's family who have not seen him for over 18 years. What Patchett expertly does is portray the way grief affects all of us. I really could go on and on about how wonderful a book this is, but it's the kind of thing you have to experience for yourself.

This is a must read.

This book has things to recommend it including Patchett’s skill at writing and the background of characters working on stage as magicians. This appealed to me since my grandfather was a professional magician in the 1930s-1950s. The beautiful Sabine travels to Nebraska from Los Angeles after her magician husband Parsifal dies, and she is stunned to learn he has a family there. I felt the ending was a let down with too much left up in the air. I would give her novel Bel Canto five stars and also her nonfiction book about her friend Lucy Grealy. This is an earlier novel and she has grown skill as a novelist since this, her third novel.

This is a simple story but a beautiful novel. I'm typically a hardcore mystery reader, 99% of what I read is mystery. "Life stories", as I call them, usually have no interest for me, but this book was loaded on my Nook so I clicked and took a chance. I'm so glad I did. I would put this book in my top 20.

It's a beautiful story of love and loss, losing because of the love and gaining in spite of the love and loss. After reading other reviews, others were not as touched by the characters, but I felt like I rooted for them, cared about them and wanted to know more about them and what happened after. It's hard to put into words, just open it and read it.

One afternoon, while looking for another title entirely, I "found" Patchett's THE MAGICIAN'S ASSISTANT. I was disappointed in her most recent novel, STATE OF WONDER, but liked her earlier work, so picked it up. The novel slowly captured my attention, drawing me into a subtle yet absorbing world of love and loss. Patchett's brilliant juxtaposition of LA and Nebraska reflects the outward life, the "before" life of stimulating LA, while Nebraska mirrors the the protagonist's interior life following Parsifal's death, when all appears as barren as its cold and nondescript snowfields. The best review I read of this was written in 1998 and is posted on the the store.com site. I don't know if one is allowed to quote another review. If so, here it is:
"Magic is sometimes like love.", July 21, 1998
By Dick Oliver (New Hampshire, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Magician's Assistant (Hardcover)
Subtle, beautiful, poignant prose--if you're like me, you were starting to wonder if it could still be found in a book written in the 90s. Here it is. Never mind the plot, which has none of the knife-blade intensity we're so used to these days. And never mind the characters, which are unique and real, though not particularly complex or surprising. Read this book for the sentences, the paragraphs, the feelings and descriptions and quiet inner musings of the Magician's Assistant herself, the ultimate almost-X-gen expert in not-quite-tragic infatuation, Sabine Parsifal. This book is as much poem as novel. The voices echo eerily, as if you'd heard every line in the "real" world but you can't remember where. On the other hand, if subtlety and unending depression bore you, or positive portrayals of homosexual relationships freak you out, better skip this title and head for the bestseller list instead.

At first glance it seems Sabine has been living a nice life—she’s beautiful, she’s achieved a bit of fame or at least appeared on Carson and has an interesting career, she’s surrounded herself with nice material things and seems to have no stress other than that surrounding Phan’s illness, and she has a too-good-to-be-true relationship with her parents. But then you realize she’s never had anything of her own—no children, of course, but also no reciprocal love relationship with a partner who put her before anyone else, she abandoned her plans to be an architect to follow around behind Parsifal and her life is so insignificant without Parsifal it’s not even described where she’d been living before she started camping out at Parisfal and Phan’s house during Phan’s illness other than one or two passing mentions of her apartment. If Sabine were your daughter, you would probably feel slightly confused and disappointed that she never had much of her own life to feel good about. Sabine seems to be a follower to the extreme. Think about how pathetic the whole arrangement would seem if Parsifal were a straight man. Why is it much different because he’s gay? Is Sabine happy? Sort of, yes, but it’s an empty sort of happiness borne from never knowing anything more, devoid of the pride and humiliations and suffering and joy of building your own life, either alone or with your own partner.

Often when there’s a character whose decisions cause them to live a life that seems less than self-interested, some clues are provided as to why. For example, Kitty seems to have chosen a bullying husband. This might have caused us to wonder about her decisions except that we know her father was abusive—since these things unfortunately tend to be passed down from one generation to the next, Kitty’s choices do make sense to the reader. Sabine’s choices, however, are much more unusual than the all too common cycle of domestic abuse and are given startlingly little reflection. We get a tiny glimpse of something that might be an explanation when Sabine says she feels she’s always been on the outside of her parents’ relationship. Maybe she feels like she’s been a third wheel in their love and subconsciously set out to duplicate that feeling in her adult life? It’s fine that Parsifal is attractive and looks good in a tuxedo but that’s going to get you a year or two before an emotionally healthy woman moves on to a love that can be requited.

The other part I found unrealistic was how everyone in Guy’s family so openly loved and welcomed Sabine without any awkwardness or reservation. This just seems so unlikely. Guy’s family is in a state of unrest, weddings are imminent, abused women are coming and going, and in the middle of all of it every one of them completely falls in love with Sabine? There’s not one family member with the exception of Howard who feels the slightest bit of reservation about her plopping herself down in the family home, building models and shuffling cards like an overgrown child? And the kiss with Kitty? Ugh. That was an adolescent boy’s version of what might happen in a house full of women.

The last part, the part that got me almost angry, was Sabine’s unilateral decision to take Kitty and her boys to Los Angeles with her as though they were Persian rugs, as though that would solve the boys’ problems instead of be the beginning of them. At this point I realized Ann Patchett has no children. She has no children and is not particularly able to relate to parents. She wants everyone to know how breezy, empty, materialistic and whimsical childless adults can be. The people I ended up feeling sorry for were Sabine’s parents. It sounds like they did a good job raising her and yet they ended up with this self-absorbed superficial woman-child who has started her forties with no family of her own, no real career, but, as we are reminded over and over again, a huge house and plenty of money with which to do nothing for the rest of her life.

The first thing you notice when reading The Magician's Assistant is that Ann Patchett really cares for her characters. She quietly nurtures them, even the minor ones, and offers the reader a gentle yet revealing view of their complex lives.
At the opening of the novel, Parsifal the magician, has suddenly died and Sabine, his assistant of twenty years and recently his wife, is trying to cope with her loss. Their relationship had always been a unique one - Sabine loved him and dedicated her life to him despite his inability to love her in the same way: he was gay. What complicates her grief is the discovery that Parsifal has family living in Nebraska - a mother and two sisters - family he had always told her died many years earlier in an accident. In fact, everything she knows about the history of his life, turns out to be a fabricated story. As Sabine struggles to comprehend the reasons for Parisfal's deceptions, she embarks on an emotional journey, traveling to Nebraska to try and connect with the Parsifal she never knew through the family she never knew he had.
Patchett effectively uses two elements throughout the book that bind this story together: the dream world and the world of magic. Descriptions of Sabine's dreams, where she reunites with Parsifal as well as his gay lover Phan, are used to relate Sabine's emotional awakenings as she forms relationships with Parsifal's family and learns of his early life; the magic that Parsifal and Sabine performed throughout their union serves as the tool that brings Parsifal's family an understanding of the son/brother they lost years ago.
Lovingly written and gracefully rendered, The Magician's Assistant is a deceivingly simple book and a very rewarding experience.

Sabine's gay husband, Parfisal, suffering from AIDS, dies of an aneurism fourteen months after AIDS took his lover Phan's life. Paradisal, a magician, only married his assistant Sabine after Phan's death. Sabine then sets out to learn more about her husband by visiting his family, who have never heard of her.

Narrator Sabine is difficult to embrace, as she is someone to whom things happen, rather than a compelling character who drives a story. She appears to lack the ambition to propel her life in an active forward motion to achieve goals or relationships. What makes a woman knowingly marry a gay man with AIDS?

Ann Patchett has a delicious way of weaving words together so that they almost dance off the page and etch themselves into your brain, even when the story isn't something I would normally read.

There's nothing worse than reading along and enjoying a book and having the ending be a complete and total disappointment. It ruins the book for me. This book's ending was such a HUGE disappointment that it overshadowed what were previously positive feelings about the book. The ending left me wondering if the author either didn't know how to end the book or just gave up and got bored writing it and just stopped writing. I actually went back a page in my Kindle to be sure I hadn't accidentally skipped forward but sadly I hadn't…such potential ruined by a nothing ending.

"The Magician's Assistant" by Anne Patchett is a wonderful character study which is ultimately a coming of age story of a middle-aged woman who must now find a life without the person who had truly defined it. The novel opens as Sabine, the title character, unexpectedly faces the death of the love of her life and husband-in-name-only, Parsifal the Magician. As time goes by, Sabine (and the reader) slowly uncover Parsifal's hidden past. Not unlike a magician herself, Patchett skillfully weaves the journey of a handful of characters as they create a new reality of the Parsifal they thought they knew.
As the cover says, this novel is very much about the feelings of love and loss of both parties. The strangers pull together (reluctantly and awkwardly at first) and soon find comfort in sharing their stories and own lives. Sabine is able to piece together a fuller picture of the man she spent much of her life with, while Parsifal's family learn about the son and brother they spent much of their life without. Patchett makes you care about each character (even the deceased magician). Much to her credit, the author makes you wonder how they are doing "today."

Ann Patchett would make my list of ten favorite authors ... if I was to keep such a list. She crafts the most wonderful characters. You wish you could meet them in real life, have coffee with them, be a fly on their wall ... the kind of characters that make you sad when the book ends. The Magician's Assistant in this novel is Sabine, and the magician is Parsifal, though the opening line of the book states that he is dead. Sabine and Parsifal are also recently married, though their relationship is not traditional. Upon Parsifal's death, Sabine learns of his family in Nebraska. A family he never spoke of. The book takes place in Los Angeles and Nebraska. Key themes include love, families and their secrets and magic. A beautiful, meandering story, I really did not want it to end. Bottom line, Patchett is a super-gifted writer.

"The Magician's Assistant" was one of those books that surprised me. I checked it out randomly from the library, with no expectations, and found myself completely engaged by the second chapter. The author delves into the grieving process Sabine goes through as she tries to make sense out of her life and her relationship with her gay husband, the magician Parcifal. A secondary character, Parcifal's lover and Sabine's friend Phan, comes to life in dream sequences to show Sabine the way she can weave her memories together with new information she receives as she gets to know Parcifal's family. The novel really challenged the themes of love, comfort and safety for me. SPOILER: The last chapter or so seems to want to wrap things up quickly, as other reviews note, and I do not fully agree with Patchett's treatment of Sabine's relationship with Kitty. Perhaps this is contrary to the author's intention, but I prefer to see Sabine as wanting to be close to Kitty as a way to recapture her closeness with Parcifal. I don't see this as a lesbian "awakening" but rather a quest for the comfort and acceptance she felt with Parcifal, Phan and Rabbit in their unorthodox family.

I look forward to reading more by Ann Patchett.

This is a nice novel for someone who likes magic and also appreciates the development of characters with new and unexpected personal relationships.

It's gratifying, and interesting, reading that holds your interest on a cold winter night.

Not great literature, but quite good.

Sabine is an extremely lovely woman who marries Parsifal, a gay man and magician whom she loves deeply. He loves her too and a balance somehow occurs as Sabine, Parsifal and Pham his gay love become a unconventional family. I recommend it with the caveat that it is about an unconventional marriage that is difficult to understand. I didnt have trouble accepting the unconventionality of their marriage but I did question why Sabine didnt find romantic love elsewhere and still love Parsifal and Pham in a deeply ethereal way. The story of Parsifal's life is told in a retrospective after Phan and Parsifal die and Sabine is left in a void trying to find out why Parsifal lied to her about the existance of his parents and sisters in Nebraska. Its a complex novel about love, truth and mourning.

I started reading Ann a few years ago. As I have read more and more of her books I have been awed by her talent and her ability to write such different stories. This story left me wanting more. The characters are so well developed you want to know more about them. Great writer. Read all her books!

This story opens with Sabine's husband dying in the emergency room. What an unusual start to an unusual story! Sabine had married her husband not long before, after having been his assistant in his magic act for twenty years. After the death of his gay lover's death of AIDS, Parsifal married Sabine so she would inherit all he owned. As his assistant, Sabine knew all his tricks, except for one. After his death, she discovered that his mother was not dead. He had a whole other family unknown to her. Sabine spends the story getting to know this family and Parsifal's past, in efforts to fill the gaping hole that his death had left behind. She also discovers the secrets that he kept from her.

This very unusual story with unusual characters lends a touch of realism to the impossible. The fact that Ann Patchett can pull this off is a testament to her talent as a writer.
magician

After getting over my initial bewilderment of a straight woman character knowingly marrying a gay man and obsessing over him long after his death, it all was made plausible as Patchett weaved this reader into another well told story. Filled with a colorful cast of characters based in L.A. and Alliance, Nebraska. I have become more and more a fan of Ann Patchett's work. Her stories are nicely diverse and spread out all across the human spectrum.

Her extended dream sequences don't make a lot of sense to me, and I thought bogged down the pace on this one, still I enjoyed the book as a whole. I like the subject a lot, "families with major issues". Reminded me of Anne Tyler (high praise), and just as good.

I loved this book so much, and so did not want it to end, that I immediately read it again. Great story, beautiful writing – a magical read. Some reviewers have been disappointed with what they felt was an abrupt ending, and the ending was a part of my wanting to reread the book, but the book ends no more abruptly than it begins – it is a slice of life. Ann Patchett amazes me with her storytelling with each book I read.

A big disappointment, because I really like Bel Canto. But I kept reading, initially because I figured it would have to improve and then just because it was so fascinating to read a book in which there are no plausible characters or events. Now I'm reconsidering whether perhaps I have overrated Bel Canto. This book is filled with stereotypical, one-dimensional people (abusive husband, long-suffering mother, and so forth). Only three of them even had the potential to be interesting and two of those are dead and the other one is uniformly hated by every character. The main character is depressed and weirdly childlike. She wasted her life in thrall to a handsome gay man, has no friends or life of her own, and is strangely close (at age 41) to her parents. Nevertheless, she is from L.A. and rich and beautiful and tall, so we are supposed to find her fascinating.

Apparently L.A. is nirvana, while Nebraska is an utter wasteland. This passage pretty much sums up the level of writing: "'You don't understand him,' Sabine said, laying out four slices of bread. She had convinced Dot to switch over from white to whole wheat." No one ever does come even close to understanding the person in question--who for some reason stops being important by the unsatisfying end of the book--but at least Nebraska has been introduced to the wonders of fiber! And (spoiler alert!) some of the characters are going to leave Nebraska for L.A.! So there is hope for them! They will be happier in the L.A. mansion with the pool than they were in the small house in the middle of a Nebraska winter! Such insight about human nature!

Bear with me here as I wish to make an unusual comparison of Ann Patchett to Ernest Hemingway. At least in terms of crisp, clear, terse and powerful prose. Whereas, Hemingway was tough, Patchett tends to be tender. Her ability to develop characters is amazing and she seems to hit the right level of pacing. The story has interesting "average" folks - yeah, there really are quite a few of them out there - as well as some esoteric ones and the story itself is interesting. Not usually my type of novel so pleasantly surprised that this one held my interest.

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 friendship that was unbreakable. When Parsifal's lawyer notifies Sabine that he had a family (who he claimed were dead) and that his name is really Guy Fetters, Sabine's world gets turned on its head. Suddenly, the man she though she knew most in the world is a stranger to her, and she wants to learn everything about his past that he has kept from her. So the Fetter family enters Sabine's life, and the book follows the development of these new relationships seamlessly.

There is a hint of magic in Patchett's writing, and not just the tricks and illusions she recalls in The Magician's Assistant. She writes relationships and dialogue in a manner that seems effortless. Her characters are entirely human - flawed and lovable. This was a great read and a touch of magic amongst the ordinary.

This was a good read, although not Ann Patchett's best work to date. It didn't have exactly the ending that I thought it might, but that seems to be part of Ann Patchett's style. It took me into a world that I know little about, but I could easily relate to each of the characters. I felt myself tell the characters what to do (though that wouldn't have been as interesting!)

A lot of beautiful writing...but there was no resolution! I don't absolutely believe that the ending of a book has to set things out in black and white, but there has to at least be a good indication of where the character's going to go for a book to be satisfying, and there isn't that here. SPOILER -- What, so the idea here is that Sabine has realized she's a lesbian? Or not? We don't really know, and that's one thing that makes this book unsatisfying.

I enjoyed the book until about three-quarters of the way through, up until around the point it became clear there wasn't going to be any grand enlightenment. As another reviewer said, most of the secrets are revealed by the first half of the book. That's all right, if somehow there's an epiphany afterward, or the character grows. But that didn't really happen here.

Nice writing, interesting characters. But this book needed a final spark of energy that wasn't, in the end, there. What's the meaning of all the dreams with her husband's lover, Phan? A few would have been fine; as it was, there's a few too many.

I've read most of Ann's books now. "Bel Canto" is by far the best. There's a definite progression and improvement with her writing, so I'm looking forward to the next one.

"The Magician's Assistant" surprised me in a number of ways. This is not the genre of book I usually read, as I lean toward suspense and comic romance as a general rule. But when I read the first page, I turned to the second, and then I kept going, not really mindful of why, but simply caught up in an unusual story and seamless writing. Usually easily bored, I never was with this book.

The second surprise was that the story, as odd as it was, lingers in my thoughts, continuing to bring up questions as it -- if you'll forgive the clichéd term -- resonates. That the ending does not sum up the story "satisfactorily," as some reviewers have written, actually works for me because I was left to draw my own conclusions, which makes me think about it more. As with the rest of the story, there is so much nuance in the ending that it causes examination of one's own judgments about love, sexuality, familial ties, etc.

Another surprise, but also a possible weakness for me, was that I didn't really relate to any of the characters, particularly not Sabine, the protagonist. Nothing that she did lined up with anything I might do (except maybe find deep affection for a rabbit). But this is surprising in that the book kept me involved and interested without me feeling that I could identify with anyone in it. Maybe this is the gift of good writing, however, that the reader can view the lives of others with interest and empathy without any personal knowledge of what it is like to be in their skin.

By skipping most of the endless dream sequences and tedious descriptions of magic acts, I managed to get a bit over halfway through before pretty much giving up. I guess I'll look at the end to see if my predictions are correct. What a disappointment. I loved Bel Canto and was mildly entertained by State of Wonder, but this is simply boring. And how could anyone write a story set in Alliance NE without mentioning Carhenge!

Okay, I see all the stars and can read all the rave reviews, but honestly I just don't get it.

Sabine spent 22 years with a gay man who had his own significant other. Huh. HE had a significant other. She denied herself of having her own. She remained devoted to her gay partner/friend/confidant who, by the way, did NOT confide in Sabine, and is finally rewarded with marriage only after his significant other dies...and by that time he too is ill. Huh. The rest of the book is an homage to her dead husband, who was really only her husband in name. During this time we do get to meet his family and there is a good deal of character development and we start to like them and appreciate them and their story lines are developed and this is much more interesting than hearing about the dead husband and his dead lover and how Sabine spent 22 years happily being the 3rd wheel in the relationship....and then it ends. Yup. Ends. All the balls are in the air and it just ends. Oh sure...we can use our imaginations to create the rest of the story for ourselves, but really...all that time that was spent developing these storylines and then POOF....like magic...gone.

I was disappointed. His family is the story. She's boring. He's boring. His lover is boring. Only his family is interesting and we were robbed of that.

Patchett combines magical realism with modern American themes, elevating domestic drama to true literature. Her understanding of the psychology of her characters makes them completely believable, and the dialog satisfyingly authentic. Each of her novels is a personal and intimate gift to the reader.

I didn't think I was going to enjoy this book -- but in the end it definitely grew on me and ultimately touched me.
It's definitely written in a muted tone. The protagonist, the assistant of the title, is sunk in depression after the death of her two gay friends, one of whom was her husband. She sleeps a lot -- but she has sleepwalked through most of her life, settling for the illusion of love instead of the real thing. Her role as the assistant has been to stand there and smile sweetly while he does all the real living and loving.
Surprisingly, only when she travels to snow-bound Nebraska to bond with her dead husband's famly does the book come truly to life. It becomes clear this is a book about family and about the possibility of love -- the love that holds families together and the love that binds two people together, true love, the real thing, not the illusion.
Worth persisting with.

When we love completely, even weird truth can not stop that love. There are families that send the world wondrous personalities. They don't make any sense when seen within a family circle. Self-created. And we love them deeply. Imagine meeting the family of your wunderkind and they just shock you with every new tale they tell. Be ready to dive deep into a most impossible tale.

Anne Patchett has a way with words. It's not so much that she's a wordsmith, but rather just a gifted storyteller. This was such an amazing book. She sucked me right in and I felt for her, her pain, and her various experiences, as she dealt with her sense of loss after her husband's death.

The book also dealt with the fantastic in terms of her "visits" from her friend (and her dead husband's former partner), and then, finally visits from her dead husband. This could have been sappy or disjointed, but it wasn't.

Her protagonists are always human and are able to pull themselves together against or in spite of adversity. The audience for this book is wide.

The situation is wonderfully interesting and unusual. As the plot unfolded, I loved the dream sequences and the characterizations of Parcifal and Phan, as well as Sabine. I didn't like the "create your own ending" --I never do, but I think the author in this case could have at least narrowed the possibilities down. She left the extremely complicated situation without much hope of resolution. It seems to me that at least a partial resolution is required of any good author.

Sabine's husband, Parsifal the Magician, suddenly dies unexpectedly. After 20 years in a most unusual union, Sabine thinks she knows all there is to know about her former mate. However, she soon finds out that smoke and mirrors were Parsifal's stock-in-trade on many fronts. As she comes into contact with the family her husband strove so hard to conceal, she finds others trying to sort out a different sort of grief Parsifal left behind in Nebraska. As Sabine and Parsifal's family try to understand the dynamics of Parsifal's lives with the other party, one can almost see the way to healing and redemption for at least some of those involved.
A book of unusual, complex characters in non conventional settings, the strength of this book is how it demonstrates that, no matter how different and non-conformist we may be on the surface, we are nevertheless very remarkably the same in what we want and what we fear.
A lovely and oddly inspiring story.

Ann Patchett tackled some very challenging issues, such as grief and Aids and homosexuality. What made this book unique in its approach was the occupation of the main character (magician's assistant) and her relationship to the deceased (wife of the magician who was a homosexual man living with his partner). The story itself unfolds when she travels to Nebraska to meet her husband's family after his death. This is a book where you really care about the people.

I wanted to give this book five stars: the characters and places were so well realized. I cared deeply about each character in the book. I could visualize every scene easily, and I loved delving into the realities of the world of a magician's assistant. There was even a certain mystical quality crafted around the protagonist's dreams. Unfortunately, the end of the book was very lack-luster, as if the author didn't really have a clear view of where she wanted to the story to go. The marginally less realistic features of the book were woven into the ending in an inelegant way. I understand when an author chooses not to have a definitive "and they all lived happily ever after", but I'm more comfortable with some measure of "closure" so that as a reader I can at least imagine how I think the protagonist will proceed based on their emotional journey through the book. I left this story with absolutely no inspiration of what I hoped would happen next for Sabine. So only three stars because I spend so much time reading and loving this book and left it terribly unsatisfied. Sorry!

A good magician doesn't let you see him palm the ball or when she moves the elephant off stage. Ann Patchett's The Magician's Assistant reveals the last trick of Parsifal the Magician with the same finesse as the best performing in Las Vegas today. Parsifal was one of the best but even his misdirection couldn't keep death from finding him. When it did, it left Sabine, his wife and assistant, a widow. Parsifal's death also illuminated one of his major illusions: his story that he had no family. Sabine discovers she has in-laws living in Nebraska. From California to Nebraska, the story of Parsifal's life and Sabine's recovery from his death is revealed like a magic show. The inane patter of the magician distracts the audience from the sleight of hand just as Patchett diverts the reader's attention from the story manipulations until it's time for the big reveal. The unfolding story mimics a magic show, showing the little pieces of life that lulls the reader into the story followed by unexpected but believable presentations of the unexpected. Throughout, Sabine retains the humanity that grounds the story and makes it a truly magical experience to read.

The story is wonderfully crafted, slowly teasing out details of both Parsifal and Sabine. The plot and characterization progress at the pace of life. It's the characterizations that provide the real power, just as the magician and their assistant provide the power in the illusions. The stark contrast between Sabine's life in Los Angeles and her newly discovered in-laws in Nebraska provide a lyrical description of the two worlds Parsifal knew and Sabine is experiencing for the first time. Patchett provides depth and meaning in beautifully crafted sentences that caused me to pause and revel in the shear exquisiteness of the description. Published in 1997, the story captures events like airport greetings before 9/11 and the importance Wal-Mart has in rural America. And this is done in an understated manner that enhances Sabine's story of discovery and recovery.

I recommend this novel to anyone wanting to read a love story, a story of loss and recovery, a story of recovery, or a lovingly crafted collection of sentences, descriptions, and emotions.

Love comes in many forms and from many directions - just one of the many lessons to be learned from Ann Patchett's wonderful novel The Magician's Assistant. As we mourn with Sabine, the assistant for whom the book was named, who has lost her magician husband who never really was her husband, we also learn to rejoice with her for all the love in her life that comes from the most unsuspecting places: the man her husband, Parsifal, loved; the family Parsifal left behind and pronounced dead; even the rabbit who shared the spotlight in their magic act. As Sabine unravels the truth about Parsifal's past, she heals her own wounds of loss as well as the scars left on others using the magic of slight of hand and an open and loving heart.

Were I sitting beside Ann Patchett when she wrote the conclusion to her novel, I would have urged her to draw out the ending a bit more and give us a better glimpse of things to come for Sabine. On the other hand, Patchett's ending allows each of us to project our own hopes, dreams and fears into Sabine's future.

The true magic of The Magician's Assistant is that it enabled me to see in my own life a dimension that I have left unobserved and to realize that we all have the ability to pull rabbits of one form or another out of a variety of hats.

It's always thrilling to find an author who resonates with your soul. Ann Patchett does just that and I can't wait to curl up with a stack of her novels and meet her characters and hopefully learn more about her, them and me.

This book is nearly all pleasure. Its emotionally engaging enough to compel attention, but its also light enough to pick up and put down easily. There is a distinctly likeable graciousness about the characters - the star is kind, beautiful, talented and bright and her supporting cast members are loyal and perceptive. The few mean-spirited characters are dismissed quickly, and never really cloud the picture.

Occasionally, I pick up a book and wonder how on earth they made a movie out of it; this book is the exact opposite. The book is so concrete, the characters so flattering, the dialogue so clear that I could practically see the credits rolling by when I closed the cover.

I LOVED "Bel Canto" and had high hopes for this book. As I began, I thought the characters were lovingly drawn and that the only reason the book felt a little flat was because we're seeing everything through Sabine's numb and grief stricken eyes.
Yet as the book continues, that flat, superficial feeling never really goes away. We learn that the love of Sabine's life, Parsifal, could do no wrong even though he lied to Sabine about his past and did other horrible, though understandable things. We learn that Nebraska and snow are the definition of hell on earth and that Los Angeles and those who live there are perfect - their only flaws being insignificant ones.
We learn that Sabine is one of the most clueless people on Earth, even after having travelled the world, having met hundreds of people, and after having lived 44 years in an international city like LA. I so started to doubt what I was experiencing through her that when she has her big emotional "breakthrough" - I didn't believe it.
The ending is another of those "I guess I've written enough pages so I'll stop here" endings. Sigh.
Patchett's writing is lyrical and so wonderful to read - I just feel that this book wasn't fleshed out enough. There just wasn't enough of a story or an ending to put it in the same league as "Bel Canto".
I guess I'll just wait for her next book.

Sabine is the magician’s assistant who journeys through her grief of the death of Parcifal (the magician). Informed by Parcifal’s will and encouraged by her dreams, she travels from Los Angeles to Nebraska to meet his family who he had claimed were dead. As Sabine spends time with Parcifal’s mother, his two sisters and their mates, and his two nephews, she unravels the secrets from his past and discovers her own future.

Loved the story and characters. The descriptions and sense of Low Angeles was right on. Characters interesting and believable. Loved the fees sequences, they were beautiful and hopeful. My favorite Ann Patchett book out of all.

Strange is the first word that comes to mind. The family dynamics (old and new) are strange all the way around and through to the end. Ms. Patchett writes well and one can imagine that they are sitting in the Nebraska house with the family observing their rather odd habits and interactions. This is the 2nd Patchett novel that I have read - after this book I would want rave reviews about the plot before digging in.

Ann Patchett is a remarkable and gifted writer. It's hard to pick out of her many terrific books which is my favorite as each new book is just as mesmerizing as the previous one. As always, The Magician's Assistant lets you into a fascinating and unique slice of life as it tells the story of a woman and her life as a magician's assistant and the mysterious characters in her life. The story has some great twists and turns. Go on and read this book and then enjoy all her other wonderful books after that.

At first this story captured me. Parsifal died and the main character, Sabine, is heart-broken. You truly felt her grief for the loss of the "love of her life."

The problem with the story is that nothing really happens. I kept reading the book and waiting for "it." Waiting.. waiting... Exactly when you think "it" has happened, it turns into nothing.

This is a story with no climax. It is an easy read, and while Sabine is truly enduring, this story was a disappointment.

This is now the second (and very likely the last) Ann Patchett book I have read. I feel neither book lived up to the reviews.

I really enjoyed this book. Patchett put together a very sweet and often sad story that definitely made for an emotional read. More driven by the rich characters than the plot (which definitely felt predictable), Patchett left some ambiguity in the ending (allowing readers the freedom to hold the "real" ending in their own hands), while still maintaining the sense of a very satisfying conclusion. One personal pet peeve of mine bothered me throughout the book: the lack of chapters. It made it more difficult to set this book aside, so I ended up reading it in virtually one sitting! The book was solidly engrossing and while I will not be rushing out to immediately start reading the rest of Patchett's canon, I will definitely be eventually checking out the rest of her novels.

The only other Patchett I'd read before this was State of Wonder, which I completely adored and want to re-read. I liked this book very much, especially her character development, but it didn't hook me like State did. I was a little disappointed in how the ending evolved. Still, it was definitely worth the read.

I'm fairly liberal with my stars....I love reading and most of the books I read. For this one...if there had been 10 stars...I would have wanted to give it 15. It was delightful. Beautiful words.....beautiful story. I was sad when I finished.

This was a disappointing read after a pretty good start that initially got me interested. But like some other reviewers, I just never got into the character of Sabine - what motivated her to love Parsifal, a man incapable of loving her because of his gayness. Also, the long winded interaction in LA and then in Nebraska between Sabine and Parsifal (Guy's) boringly realized family, made me do what I hate doing - giving up on the book. So not recommended, and I am at a loss why it is selling. Probably be made into a boring movie. Writers need to learn to entertain!

Subtle, beautiful, poignant prose--if you're like me, you were starting to wonder if it could still be found in a book written in the 90s. Here it is. Never mind the plot, which has none of the knife-blade intensity we're so used to these days. And never mind the characters, which are unique and real, though not particularly complex or surprising. Read this book for the sentences, the paragraphs, the feelings and descriptions and quiet inner musings of the Magician's Assistant herself, the ultimate almost-X-gen expert in not-quite-tragic infatuation, Sabine Parsifal. This book is as much poem as novel. The voices echo eerily, as if you'd heard every line in the "real" world but you can't remember where. On the other hand, if subtlety and unending depression bore you, or positive portrayals of homosexual relationships freak you out, better skip this title and head for the bestseller list instead.