The Magician's Assistant
by Ann Patchett
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When Parsifal, a handsome and charming magician, dies suddenly, his widow Sabine-who was also his faithful assistant for twenty years-learns that the family he claimed to have lost in a tragic accident is very much alive and well. Sabine is left to unravel his secrets, and the adventure she embarks upon, from sunny Los Angeles to the bitter windswept plains of Nebraska, will work its own magic on her. Sabine's extraordinary tale captures the hearts of its readers just as Sabine is captured show more by her quest. show lessTags
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From the beginning, this book pulled me into the world of Patchett's magician's assistant and left me entranced with the various landscapes and characters. Boomeranging gently between horrifyingly mundane tragedies and magical scenes of dreams and magic, the book explores the aftershocks of a man's death as those who loved him most learn about the life he experienced when not with them, and about each other.
Full of humor and beauty, the work is still one of the most transporting and realistic depictions of grief that I've seen, and Patchett's writing is wonder-full. I've seen reviewers note that the symbolism is too heavy, but I would say that, no, it's realistic to the way symbols appear and are interpreted in our everyday lives. show more Simply, you might not find that this work changes your life, or even provides any sort of an escape from reality. For me, though, it shows a sort of hope and a beauty in the world we all know, and in the experiences that we so often say we'd rather forget, however much they make our futures.
When I was younger, I wouldn't have appreciated this. Now, I can simply say that I find it perfect and worthwhile in every way, and that I'll be a fan of Patchett from here on out.
Absolutely recommended. show less
Full of humor and beauty, the work is still one of the most transporting and realistic depictions of grief that I've seen, and Patchett's writing is wonder-full. I've seen reviewers note that the symbolism is too heavy, but I would say that, no, it's realistic to the way symbols appear and are interpreted in our everyday lives. show more Simply, you might not find that this work changes your life, or even provides any sort of an escape from reality. For me, though, it shows a sort of hope and a beauty in the world we all know, and in the experiences that we so often say we'd rather forget, however much they make our futures.
When I was younger, I wouldn't have appreciated this. Now, I can simply say that I find it perfect and worthwhile in every way, and that I'll be a fan of Patchett from here on out.
Absolutely recommended. show less
I'd read this book before, but it was chosen for the downtown reading group, and I was glad for the chance to reread it, especially since I remembered so little from the last read. And that is strange, because it is a wonderful story.
A woman, Sabine, who has been the assistant to a very dashing stage magician for the last 25 years, must face his sudden death. He was gay, and had a gay lover, Phan, who died of AIDS not very long before the story starts. The magician, Parsifal, has married his assistant to make sure she inherits the substantial estate the two men have accumulated.
Sabine was hopelessly in love with Parsifal from the beginning, and while she got on with her social life, she could only love him. So it is quite a shock when show more her deep mourning is interrupted by news that his backstory was nothing she was told, and there is a whole side of him, his entire childhood, that she must learn and grapple with.
It's important to recognize that the book is about Sabine, The Magician's Assistant, rather than Parsifal himself, who is such a magnet for everyone. It's her story of how she gets out of the box. Wonderful. show less
A woman, Sabine, who has been the assistant to a very dashing stage magician for the last 25 years, must face his sudden death. He was gay, and had a gay lover, Phan, who died of AIDS not very long before the story starts. The magician, Parsifal, has married his assistant to make sure she inherits the substantial estate the two men have accumulated.
Sabine was hopelessly in love with Parsifal from the beginning, and while she got on with her social life, she could only love him. So it is quite a shock when show more her deep mourning is interrupted by news that his backstory was nothing she was told, and there is a whole side of him, his entire childhood, that she must learn and grapple with.
It's important to recognize that the book is about Sabine, The Magician's Assistant, rather than Parsifal himself, who is such a magnet for everyone. It's her story of how she gets out of the box. Wonderful. show less
Sabine lost her beloved husband who was a very successful magician. Making an appearance on the Johnny Carson show was one of the highlights of Parsifal's career.
Parsihal was gay. Sabine lived with he and his partner. He married Sabine so there was a clear path for her to inherit their possessions.
Unknown to Sabine, Parsihal had another life with a mother and sisters in Nebraska. They came to California to learn more of his life after he died. There were many tremendous secrets, some of which were discovered when they visited Sabine.
Later, she chose to visit his family in Nebraska. It is there that she learned why he felt the need to suddenly leave Nebraska and leave his past behind.
While I very much liked this book, I was taken aback show more by the level of violence, both in her husband's early life, and in his family's interactions when she stayed a bit with them in Nebraska.
It was a lot of violence, and too much for me to rate the book highly. Still, I recommend it, as I like all of Patchett's books and her writing style. show less
Parsihal was gay. Sabine lived with he and his partner. He married Sabine so there was a clear path for her to inherit their possessions.
Unknown to Sabine, Parsihal had another life with a mother and sisters in Nebraska. They came to California to learn more of his life after he died. There were many tremendous secrets, some of which were discovered when they visited Sabine.
Later, she chose to visit his family in Nebraska. It is there that she learned why he felt the need to suddenly leave Nebraska and leave his past behind.
While I very much liked this book, I was taken aback show more by the level of violence, both in her husband's early life, and in his family's interactions when she stayed a bit with them in Nebraska.
It was a lot of violence, and too much for me to rate the book highly. Still, I recommend it, as I like all of Patchett's books and her writing style. show less
“It was one thing to have spent your life in love with a man who could not return the favor, but it was another thing entirely to love a man you didn’t even know.” — Ann Patchett, “The Magician’s Assistant”
For Sabine, the beautiful magician’s assistant, both of these things turn out to be true. She loved Parsifal, the magician, almost from the time he made her part of his act, and in time he married her. Yet he never loved her in the way he loved Phan, the wealthy Vietnamese man he slept with every night while Sabine slept alone. His marriage was just a part of his act.
As “The Magician’s Assistant,” Ann Patchett’s 1997 novel, begins, Sabine is alone in that big California house that is now hers. Both men have show more died, Phan from AIDS and Parsifal from a brain aneurism. Her husband had told her he was an orphan from Connecticut with no remaining family. Now she learns his mother and two sisters have been living in Nebraska all this time and that his real name was Guy Fetters.
Why had he lied to her? The mystery deepens when his mother, Dot Fetters, and one sister, Bertie, having been notified of his death by a lawyer, come to California to meet the wife they didn’t even know he had. Sabine finds them to be pleasant, quite ordinary women. So why had he pretended they didn't even exist?
A magician knows how to hide secrets, but a magician's assistant learns those secrets as she learns the act. Often she is the one who makes the magic happen while the magician waves his arms and keeps the audience focused elsewhere. And so Sabine, when she later visits the Fetters home in Nebraska, gradually learns the secrets Parsifal had tried so hard to keep hidden.
That home had been marked by discord and violence when Guy Fetters was a boy, and so it is now. Where before it was his father who was the source of the trouble, now it is Howard, the husband of Kitty, the older sister who looks so much like Parsifal. Howard's very presence in the house seems to put everyone on edge.
Sabine turns out to be a pretty good magician in her own right, but her most challenging trick may be trying to bring peace to this broken family, whose idea of a good time is watching a tape of an old Johnny Carson show on which Parsifal and Sabine had appeared years before. They watch it every night almost as an act of worship. Their idea of a night out is going to Wal-Mart. "It's a very romantic place, really," Kitty tells her.
While Sabine works her magic on the Fetters family, the family works its own magic on her, easing her sense of loss and abandonment.
This was Patchett's third novel, and two decades later it holds up very well. show less
For Sabine, the beautiful magician’s assistant, both of these things turn out to be true. She loved Parsifal, the magician, almost from the time he made her part of his act, and in time he married her. Yet he never loved her in the way he loved Phan, the wealthy Vietnamese man he slept with every night while Sabine slept alone. His marriage was just a part of his act.
As “The Magician’s Assistant,” Ann Patchett’s 1997 novel, begins, Sabine is alone in that big California house that is now hers. Both men have show more died, Phan from AIDS and Parsifal from a brain aneurism. Her husband had told her he was an orphan from Connecticut with no remaining family. Now she learns his mother and two sisters have been living in Nebraska all this time and that his real name was Guy Fetters.
Why had he lied to her? The mystery deepens when his mother, Dot Fetters, and one sister, Bertie, having been notified of his death by a lawyer, come to California to meet the wife they didn’t even know he had. Sabine finds them to be pleasant, quite ordinary women. So why had he pretended they didn't even exist?
A magician knows how to hide secrets, but a magician's assistant learns those secrets as she learns the act. Often she is the one who makes the magic happen while the magician waves his arms and keeps the audience focused elsewhere. And so Sabine, when she later visits the Fetters home in Nebraska, gradually learns the secrets Parsifal had tried so hard to keep hidden.
That home had been marked by discord and violence when Guy Fetters was a boy, and so it is now. Where before it was his father who was the source of the trouble, now it is Howard, the husband of Kitty, the older sister who looks so much like Parsifal. Howard's very presence in the house seems to put everyone on edge.
Sabine turns out to be a pretty good magician in her own right, but her most challenging trick may be trying to bring peace to this broken family, whose idea of a good time is watching a tape of an old Johnny Carson show on which Parsifal and Sabine had appeared years before. They watch it every night almost as an act of worship. Their idea of a night out is going to Wal-Mart. "It's a very romantic place, really," Kitty tells her.
While Sabine works her magic on the Fetters family, the family works its own magic on her, easing her sense of loss and abandonment.
This was Patchett's third novel, and two decades later it holds up very well. show less
Sabine has spent her entire life pining after the one man she could never have. She’s spent years working as a magician’s assistant for Parsifal, but he is gay and can never return her love in the way she wants. She was close friends with both him and his partner Phan. After Phan’s death she and Parsifal marry for companionship and so that she will inherit his home. When he passes away she finds out he was not orphaned as he claimed, but has a whole family in Nebraska who want to meet her.
This strange premise is not at all what I was expecting. I think I thought it would be a bit like The Prestige or something, set in the 1800s and full of intrigue. Instead it’s a quiet story of grief and love and the many forms that both of show more those things come in. The grief aspect of the novel was actually the most interesting to me. I felt like Patchett captured its confusing nature well. One moment you’re in shock, another you’re unable to function, yet another you’re sappy with memories or regrets. Its mercurial forms can leave a person reeling and I think Sabine was struggling with that.
It’s a tribute to Patchett’s writing that I enjoyed this one as much as I did. It’s certainly not my favorite or her novels, but like her other books it’s so characters driven that the odd plot doesn’t really detract from it. I disliked the ending, which felt a bit too contrived for me, but that seems to be a trademark of Patchett’s. Many people felt the same way about Bel Canto.
BOTTOM LINE: Read it if you already love her work. If you’re new to her, start with Bel Canto, a gorgeously written story, or with her nonfiction book Truth & Beauty, an ode to her friendship with a fellow writer. This one isn’t bad, but it never comes together as well as those others. show less
This strange premise is not at all what I was expecting. I think I thought it would be a bit like The Prestige or something, set in the 1800s and full of intrigue. Instead it’s a quiet story of grief and love and the many forms that both of show more those things come in. The grief aspect of the novel was actually the most interesting to me. I felt like Patchett captured its confusing nature well. One moment you’re in shock, another you’re unable to function, yet another you’re sappy with memories or regrets. Its mercurial forms can leave a person reeling and I think Sabine was struggling with that.
It’s a tribute to Patchett’s writing that I enjoyed this one as much as I did. It’s certainly not my favorite or her novels, but like her other books it’s so characters driven that the odd plot doesn’t really detract from it. I disliked the ending, which felt a bit too contrived for me, but that seems to be a trademark of Patchett’s. Many people felt the same way about Bel Canto.
BOTTOM LINE: Read it if you already love her work. If you’re new to her, start with Bel Canto, a gorgeously written story, or with her nonfiction book Truth & Beauty, an ode to her friendship with a fellow writer. This one isn’t bad, but it never comes together as well as those others. show less
The novel begins shortly after the death of Sabine's husband, Parsifal. He was gay, and his lover, Phan, has also died recently. Parsifal married Sabine so she could inherit from him with less fuss; Sabine probably married Parsifal because she once loved him, and, in the later years of their relationship, considered him her best friend. Parsifal was a magician and Sabine his assistant. When Parsifal's will reveals that he has a mother and two sisters living in Nebraska, about whom he never told Sabine, she begins to discover things about Parisal's past that both clarify and confuse her understanding of who he was.
Patchett's writing is wonderful, and she puts her characters and settings (Los Angles and Alliance, Nebraska) on the page show more with such simple clarity and seemingly effortless attention to detail that you never once question the reality of them. Magic tricks and the world of magicians weave through the story, adding interest and some thematic heft. The secrets in Parsifal's past always work to reveal more about the novel's characters, never exist for drama or shock value. An engaging and compelling read, though one which ends perhaps a bit abruptly, without a fully satisfying resolution to all of the story threads. show less
Patchett's writing is wonderful, and she puts her characters and settings (Los Angles and Alliance, Nebraska) on the page show more with such simple clarity and seemingly effortless attention to detail that you never once question the reality of them. Magic tricks and the world of magicians weave through the story, adding interest and some thematic heft. The secrets in Parsifal's past always work to reveal more about the novel's characters, never exist for drama or shock value. An engaging and compelling read, though one which ends perhaps a bit abruptly, without a fully satisfying resolution to all of the story threads. show less
Parsifal the Magician is dead, as is Phan, his lover, leaving only Sabine, the magician’s assistant who has been in love with Parsifal for 22 years, since the day she was 19 and Parsifal called her to the stage as a volunteer during his act. Phan died painfully from AIDS and Parsifal, expecting the same for himself, married Sabine a year ago, making her the beneficiary of his (and Phan’s) wealth and possessions. But an aneurysm took away in an instant the two years she thought they had left and Sabine would gladly give up the spacious Los Angeles home they shared for just a few moments with the man she loved.
Crippled by grief, Sabine curls up with Rabbit and sleeps through the days, reveling in vivid, dreamy conversations with Phan, show more until she is forced to discover that Parsifal’s family is not dead, as she has always believed. His mother and two sisters are quite alive in his Nebraska home town.
Sabine’s parents discourage her from making contact but Sabine cannot resist. Her future with Parsifal is gone; all that remains to know about him is his past. Why did he leave his family and never look back? Why did he lie to her? Did Sabine really know Parsifal at all?
Patchett builds the story with sleight of hand, jumping around in time to fill in the pieces of Parsifal’s life and Sabine’s love. Combined with dreams that vaguely foreshadow events, Patchett’s construction is challenging but worth the enchanting effect. After living a life in limbo - in love with her best friend, a man who would never be hers - can Sabine find comfort in the life he left behind? show less
Crippled by grief, Sabine curls up with Rabbit and sleeps through the days, reveling in vivid, dreamy conversations with Phan, show more until she is forced to discover that Parsifal’s family is not dead, as she has always believed. His mother and two sisters are quite alive in his Nebraska home town.
Sabine’s parents discourage her from making contact but Sabine cannot resist. Her future with Parsifal is gone; all that remains to know about him is his past. Why did he leave his family and never look back? Why did he lie to her? Did Sabine really know Parsifal at all?
Patchett builds the story with sleight of hand, jumping around in time to fill in the pieces of Parsifal’s life and Sabine’s love. Combined with dreams that vaguely foreshadow events, Patchett’s construction is challenging but worth the enchanting effect. After living a life in limbo - in love with her best friend, a man who would never be hers - can Sabine find comfort in the life he left behind? show less
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Author Information
32+ Works 55,092 Members
Ann Patchett was born on December 2, 1963. She received the Orange Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2002 for her novel Bel Canto. Her other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician's Assistant, and State of Wonder. She has also written several nonfiction works including Truth and Beauty: A Friendship, The Getaway show more Car, The Bookshop Strikes Back, and This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Ann's title's Commonweatlth and The Patron Saint of Liars made the New York Time bestseller list. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- The Magician's Assistant
- Original publication date
- 1997-10-15
- People/Characters
- Sabine; Parsifal; Guy Fetters; Dot Fetters; Kitty Plate; Bertie Fetters (show all 9); Howard Plate; Phan Ardeau; Haas
- Important places
- USA; California, USA; Nebraska, USA; Los Angeles, California, USA
- Dedication
- to Lucy Grealy and Elizabeth McCracken
- First words
- Parsifal is dead.
- Quotations
- But now Sabine knew that the tragedy was living, there would be years and years to be alone. (p. 6)
Parcifal could mimic Phan's voice, perfect English sandwiched between layers of Vietnamese and French. (p.7)
In his life Parcifal, like his mother, probably did the best he could. But in his death he wants better. He looks back and sees where there could have been reconciliation, forgiveness. (p. 83)
No one could make out a whole sentence; but words, every one a free agent, fell against cutlery and made a kind of music. (p. 123)
The past was no longer his past and it slid away from him like anchor, unattached, to the mossy darkness of the ocean floor. (p. 175)
That everything is pretty much the same no matter where you are. That everyone has their problems, everyone has a couple of things that make them happy, and that if I went someplace else or knew other people it wouldn't reall... (show all)y change. (p. 275)
This was the very spot that Nebraska youth would come to re-imagine their lives. (p. 276) - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)He loved that trick.
- Blurbers
- Butler, Robert Olen
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