Magician's Assistant

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.

Ann Patchett, who lives in rural seclusion with her pet raccoons (at least according to the profile in Modern Tennessean), is so good I wish she wrote the morning paper. That way I could wake up and read her sentences all day long. If you've glanced at the editorials above, you know the novel's plot. Two of the most fascinating characters are already dead when we begin reading; they occupy the heroine's dreams, refusing to rest like peaceful corpses should. Among her other talents, Patchett is masterful with adolescents-- a notoriously tough breed to write about. And she's excellent with violence, too. Not the habitual, ritual violence of genre fiction, but the quick, mean violence of unhappy men. I don't want to tell you too much. Read the book. If you don't like it, e-mail me and complain about what an idiot I am. I don't think I'll be hearing from you.

This book was recommended to me by my now-worshipped local bookseller. It has been a long time--longer than I care to remember--since I have been so infatuated with a book and with the evident talent of its author. I don't think I've read anything as good as this in over ten years. This lovely, impressive book about the nature of love seems to me utterly unique and of the highest possible standard.Ann Patchett has written a book that is entirely compelling and magical in the spell it casts. Her characters and descriptions are so memorable that nine months after reading it, I can still remember almost everything. A writer who can achieve this kind of magic is a kind of wizard herself, and I have bought her two other books and am starting to read them. If you have been disillusioned with many other highly praised novels, as I have, then try Ann Patchett. I can't imagine she can disappoint.This is a book about love, and the myriad forms love takes; it is a book that radiates love. It is, I think, an irreplaceable, invaluable book. I recommend it for anything that ails you and anything that doesn't. Susan Fromberg Schaeffer