Toibin, Colm

NEW title

ANew York TimesNotable Book, Critic\’s Top Pick, and Top Ten Book of Historical Fiction

Named a Best Book of the Year byThe Washington Post, NPR,Vogue,The Wall Street Journal, andBloomberg Businessweek

From one of today\’s most brilliant and beloved novelists, a dazzling, epic family saga set across a half-century spanning World War I, the rise of Hitler, World War II, and the Cold War that is \”a feat of literary sorcery in its own right\” (Oprah Daily).

The Magicianopens in a provincial German city at the turn of the twentieth century, where the boy, Thomas Mann, grows up with a conservative father, bound by propriety, and a Brazilian mother, alluring and unpredictable. Young Mann hides his artistic aspirations from his father and his homosexual desires from everyone. He is infatuated with one of the richest, most cultured Jewish families in Munich, and marries the daughter Katia. They have six children. On a holiday in Italy, he longs for a boy he sees on a beach and writes the storyDeath in Venice. He is the most successful novelist of his time, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, a public man whose private life remains secret. He is expected to lead the condemnation of Hitler, whom he underestimates. His oldest daughter and son, leaders of Bohemianism and of the anti-Nazi movement, share lovers. He flees Germany for Switzerland, France and, ultimately, America, living first in Princeton and then in Los Angeles.

In this \”exquisitely sensitive\” (The Wall Street Journal) novel, Tibn has crafted \”a complex but empathetic portrayal of a writer in a lifelong battle against his innermost desires, his family, and the tumultuous times they endure\” (Time), and \”you\’ll find yourself savoring every page\” (Vogue).