Magic Time

I'm in two book groups and have been disappointed lately with several of our selections but NOT THIS (Magic) TIME! Doug Marlette's Magic Time has it all--mystery, gut-wrenching and only-too-recent history, multi-dimensional and likeable characters, romance, and complex issues and relationships. He moves back and forth in time with smooth transitions, never leaving the reader jolted from past to present and back. This is a relevant and timely novel--I'm recommending it to a diverse group of reader-friends.

I was sorry to see this book rated less than the five stars it deserves. At times the author approaches the grandeur of Faulkner. It is a three-tiered story of the 1964 Freedom Summer. (At times the tiers of time get a bit difficult to discern, especially within chapters, but the author always provides clues as to the time period--characters on the scene, places, etc.) Faulkner was forced to use italics to separate past events from present, but Marlette has learned from Faulkner that the modern, attentive reader does not need such. The book has literally everything--love, loyalty, violence, segregation, Ku Klux Klanners, generational conflict. In the end it shows a development from the South in the 1960's versus the 1990's. Black congressman are elected in predominantly white districts, then lead charges against corporate America for environmental pollution at the cost of local jobs. The central event, however, is the 1980's trial of a man who escaped conviction in the 1960's while his cronies went to jail. (This rings a bit false in that no one was convicted in the Goodman, Schwerner, Chaney murders in Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1964, a historical event this novel closely parallels and reflects upon.) There is the suggestion of blackmail in the 1980's trial, implying that a progressive judge had "let off" the current man being tried back in the 1960's. "Do you civil rights workers want THIS to come out?" The judge in question is the father of the Hero, Carter Ransom, a New York journalist sent back to Mississippi to cover the trial which could well embarass his own father to whom he is devoted. The judge owns up to his own "sin," thus defusing it as a trial issue. The man who got away for twenty years, now old and in a wheelchair, is convicted and sent off to prison where he should have been for 20 years. There is a long chapter describing what actually happened that night the Shiloh Church was burned down and four people were murdered. Marlette is clearly indebted to Faulkner, historical fact, to Diane McWhorter (Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of "Carry Me Home"), and to any number of authors who demonstrate that the past is not really past--it dominates the present. This book is worthy of the highest praise and the highest awards.

magic time is aptly named, because i spent wonderful and magic hours reading it. it has everything that makes a book compelling and unforgettable: lyrical, beautifully constructed sentences, true-to-life characters that i truly cared about, a page-turner of a plot, lots of romance, and a theme that highlights and brings forth important issues without preaching. i'm telling everyone i know how enjoys a good read not to miss this one!

Magic Time will not disappoint! I have always read and always ask one thing of an author, make me want to turn to the next page! Sure, we can all learn a little more, feel a little deeper, and share the world with one another through our experience but who will if that requires we become frozen by boredom. When reading Magic Time you may learn something, you will certainly feel something, and all the while your mind will forget itself as the read continues. Doug Marlette has decided to write about the South without the embroidery and fantasy often used by Southern wanna-be's, Southern never-were's or the Southern elite that 99.999% of Southerners don't know and will instinctually avoid. As you read about the evil of racism that was and still is a factor in all regions of our nation, Doug Marlette will remind you that evil rarely introduces itself for easy identification. Racism is an evil that Magic Time will not let the reader forget. What strikes this reader is that Doug Marlette doesn't hide behind the mask of explanation or run from the nudity found in the truth but presents a story to the reader for their own interpretations. Wow, what a concept, tell the story, present the reality, and accept the consequences of that honesty. Even the intellectually gifted can come down from their lofty perch of literary reference, pause in their instruction, and consider the fact that most us want a good story that teaches good over evil. Even better, I prefer a story that is bound with feather-light pages that almost turn themselves rather than lead volumes that Hercules himself could not budge nor Homer with all his wisdom could decipher.

I was lucky enough to get a copy of MAGIC TIME in the early galleys and am glad to see that it is cropping up in bookstores this fall, on all the lists, as I've been telling everyone about it for months. Spanning three decades, it brings to life the South in all its mad contradiction and recounts the personal journey of a beleaguered journalist and son of Mississippi, Carter Ransom, who is compelled to return to his hometown in Mississippi and reopen wounds that are still festering from the violence of the mid-sixties Civil Rights Era. Carter is the son of a prominent judge, and his story, both past and present, is imbedded in the lives of his family and close childhood friends who have stayed in Mississippi and now, in middle-age, help him come to terms with his family's involvement in the turmoil and divided loyalties of Freedom Summer. The story is complex in its scope, but human and hilarious in its exploration of small town friendships and big city foibles. Marlette's view of the South is refreshingly contemporary, his prose brisk and fast-paced. Best of all, his characters are true to life and laugh-out-loud hilarious. His intricate knowledge and obvious affection for small town Mississippi life is reminiscent of Grisham; his exploration of the loyalty and bonds of friendship as strong as any writer writing today. In terms of scope and sheer accuracy of setting -- from the legal challenges of reopening Civil Rights murders, to the descriptions of a small town soda fountain -- you don't get any better than this. Added to this rich mix is a flare for old fashioned story-telling, and an abiding sense of right and wrong morality that brings to life the sheer sacrifice of the heroes of the Movement, who still walk among us today.