The Last Magician - Softcover

Hospital, Janette Turner

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0702224405 ISBN 13: 9780702224409

Publisher: Univ of Queensland Pr, 1992

Synopsis

In this mesmerizing study of the effects of a dark secret on the people who must live with it, the author of Charades proves herself a magician with words and narrative structure. Moreover, she seems to have an artificer's skill for re-creating her fictional approach each time out: each of her novels is different from the others in theme, tone and method. The constants are her impeccable, sensuous prose and her fiercely intelligent imagination. Set in the rain forest near Brisbane and in the city of Sydney, in Hospital's native Australia, the narrative slowly unwinds in elliptical scenes and oblique references, like photos in which the subject is blurred but discernible, and will gradually come into focus. The "last magician" is Charlie Chang, a photographer and filmmaker who devotes himself to unraveling the puzzle at the heart of this tale. Twenty-five years ago, he was one of four children who witnessed the death of a fifth. One of them caused the event; blandly amoral, narcissistic

About this title

About the Author:

Janette Turner Hospital received Australia's Patrick White Award for lifetime literary achievement, and is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of South Carolina. She lives in Columbia, South Carolina.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Complex, wordy, sometimes compelling novel of obsession, revenge, and the threatening shadow-world underlying daily life. At the heart of Hospital's story (following Charades--not reviewed; Isobars, 1991; Dislocations, 1988, etc.) is an incident involving four children in 1950's Australia: Charlie Chang, racial outsider; Catherine Reed, upper-class girl with brains and heart; Robbie Gray, rich boy with ravenous ego and a veneer of social grace; and witchily powerful Cat, fearless outcast. After her brother's ``accidental'' death, Cat testifies against Robbie, is scapegoated, and sent to the girls' reformatory. Aftershocks continue in the lives of all four as Robbie becomes a prominent judge; Catherine flees Australia; photographer/filmmaker Charlie collects and shuffles images to re-envision the past and get the upper hand on Robbie; Cat disappears after years of prostitution and self-mutilation. Their story is pieced together by Lucy, a ``brainy sheila'' and prostitute who has lived in the quarry (a subterranean underclass community carved out beneath respectable Sydney); she is Charlie's friend and the lover of Robbie's son. As observer at secondhand, Lucy--who considers herself a tourist in the underworld--makes an interesting narrator. But when the novel begins, she too is emotionally overwhelmed; her overwrought and very literary telling often detracts from the central story's impact. Charlie Chang, who finds truth through almost magical coincidence, would not be surprised that Hospital's fellow Australian expat Peter Conrad has recently published a florid, intellectual novel (Underworld, p. 200) looking at a postmodern subterranean inferno; Hospital's version has more story. Flawed, sometimes annoying, often resonant. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of Queensland Pr
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0702224405
• ISBN 13: 9780702224409
• Binding: Paperback