The Tricksters

The Tricksters is about the Hamilton family Christmas at Carnival Hide, their 'haunted' holiday house, with their children and various guests (invited or otherwise).

This reminds me of Virigina Woolf's To the Lighthouse insofar as it focuses on a group of people over a few days. The story unfolds, compelling and eerie and domestic. It has depth of detail and insight, and is more concerned character and motive than Things Happening.
But that is where parallels with To the Lighthouse end. The Tricksters has a potentially-supernatural element - and this is what the mystery seems to be all about - yet there is actually another story going on underneath. It is this underneath story which the supernatural mystery distracts from and yet show more ultimately reveals.

It is also a coming-of-age story about 17 year old Harry (Ariadne), caught between her older brother and sister (adults) and her younger brother and sister (still children).She is a writer, more an observer of the family gathering than a participant; she has the most idea about what actually is going on. I loved her observations, her relationship with her quirky family, her writing and her attic bedroom.

Even more, I love Mahy's writing, her use of words. It's less poetic than some, perhaps, but it's also in tune with the dynamics and quirks of family life. It's grounded in the domestic in a way that is both convincing and interesting. As are the Hamiltons.

And this isn't as easy to review as I was expecting it to be, because The Tricksters was not what I was expecting - not even what I was expecting when I was halfway through reading it - and I don't want to say anything which might deny anyone else that same experience. This book surprised me, and I was glad it did.

The Hamiltons and their friends spread out like a Christmas tribe along the beach below Carnival's Hide, the only people in the world, for there were few signs of man to be seen from the beach. Earth, air, fire and water had once played, turned and turn about, over the hills around them, like huge careless children, and the Hamiltons now sunbathed and swam in the ruins left by those games, baring their backs and legs on the shifting margins of sand and sea. show less

This book made me feel so sad at the end- nostalgic for no longer being a teenager and that sense of anticipation of great things to come. Would have loved to read it when I WAS a teenager. Margaret Mahy has this amazing gift for drawing you into a story, and it's very evident in this book! I didn't want to put it down. It has a wonderful combination of matter-of-fact and fantastical, and I think Margaret Mahy writes the fantastical very well. It is genuinely strange, enchanting and a little bit terrifying. But the characters accept it in such a matter of fact way... Still, this wasn't my favourite Margaret Mahy book, something about the relationship the main character has didn't work so well for me, otherwise it would be 4 stars for sure.

Even this is YA, I'm not getting through it very fast. I think, in part, it's because it's a paranormal mystery kind of thing, and I'm not used to reading them - I have to stop and think hard every time something happens about whether it's real or not, significant or not, shared by the other characters or not.... Also, it's just a little different, as I find almost everything from NZ and Australia to be. For about the most blatant example, the characters don't freak out about public nudity, and they even joke about wife=swapping in front the of the children. Not that those are huge parts of the book, but just to give you an idea of what makes for interesting reading to a person from the USA.

Done. Hm. I guess there's a reason I don't show more read paranormal, ghost, or horror stories. Just not my cup of tea to leave that supernatural mystery, those loose ends. And oh how I despise Christobel, the exciting older sister who captivates & bullies everyone. But Mahy writes so beautifully, I have to admit that in a way I really liked the book, too. Each half second between staying and going seemed as if it must have eternity hidden in it, but it went by, mercilessly."" show less

Harry looks forward to Christmas at Carnival’s Hide, her family’s holiday home on an isolated New Zealand beach. But Harry has a secret from her family: the silent observer has begun writing a dramatic novel. When three strangers appear, travelling magicians, claiming to be descendants of the Hide’s original owners, only Harry perceives their sinister qualities, as they closely resemble characters from her book. And the tricksters reveal that Harry is not the only one in her family with a secret…

There have always been rumours of a ghost at Carnival’s Hide, as the son of the man who built the house was said to have drowned there, though the body was never found. At seventeen, Harry feels a little too old for her younger show more siblings’ ritual of greeting the ghost when they arrive, but she also feels particularly attuned to the supernatural happenings that seem to be going on throughout their holiday. Is she the only one who believes that the visiting Carnival brothers are doing real magic rather than merely conjuring?

Besides being a bit of a ghost story, The Tricksters is also the story of the Hamilton family. Harry has two older siblings and two younger siblings, a pet cat called Crumb, and her parents, sticking it out together despite some evident difficulties in the relationship, because they agree that that’s important. The novel presents each family member with their own interests and passions, and even, in the case of young Serena and Benny, a secret code language that outsiders are meant to be unable to understand. But for once this is a story about Harry, so all these people and relationships are seen from her point of view.

Even this large family are not sufficient to fill up Carnival’s Hide- it’s Christmas time after all, so there are guests of the family and hangers-on also thrown into the mix, even before the tricksters come to visit and then to stay. Harry’s older brother has brought along Robert, sometime boyfriend of Christobel, the forthright eldest of the Hamilton family, to help crew his sailboat; while Christo herself brings her former school friend Emma, who now has a young daughter. Experiencing a Southern Hemisphere festive season for the first time is English guest Anthony, who claims to be visiting for Forestry research purposes, but both Christo and Harry sense something more mysterious about him, too.

Finally come the Carnival brothers themselves, with the unlikely names of Ovid, Hadfield, and Felix. They claim to be triplets, though only two are identical, and Harry feels certain that even triplets should not bear the same identical scar. Enigmatic and entertaining, the tricksters materialise and vanish inexplicably, but not before making a lasting impact on the constitution of the Hamilton family.

This is not the sort of book to leave everything neatly tied up at the end, with a clear resolution for all events. Perhaps there is a rational explanation for occurrences within the story, but then again, there probably isn’t, and readers have to make their own peace with the mysteries of the plot. I would recommend The Tricksters to anyone who, like Harry, has ever wished to “make something happen in the outside world by the power of (their) stories”. show less

I read this book (an earlier edition) during that difficult transitory period between girlhood and womanhood. I was meant to be rehearsing for a play at comprehensive school but would hide in the girls' changing rooms and read. I can recommend this to teenage readers who feel alone and yearn for something exciting, even if it is sinister, to come into their lives.

I made myself slow down and savour every word of this wonderful story. Such an immersive piece of writing. A once a year reread for me.

The Hamilton family and their guests spend Christmas at their summer house, Carnival Hide in New Zealand. The house is haunted by the ghost of the original owner's son. While there, three unexpected visitors stop by. They claim to be brothers and tricksters or conjurers. The tricksters cause trouble for the family.

I felt that the plot is disjointed and not adequately built up. The big reveal towards the end has nothing to do with the tricksters. The book's cover says that this is suitable for 9 year olds and up - I would have to disagree. Sex is a common theme, and the "reveal" is totally inappropriate for a child.

I liked Mahy's other books, but this one I do not recommend.