Colm Tóibín’s
magnificent new novel opens 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
story Death 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 a stunning marriage of
research and imagination, Tóibín explores the heart and mind of a
writer whose gift is unparalleled and whose life is driven by a need to
belong and the anguish of illicit desire. The Magician is an
intimate, astonishingly complex portrait of Mann, his magnificent and
complex wife Katia, and the times in which they lived—the first world
war, the rise of Hitler, World War II, the Cold War, and exile. This is a
man and a family fiercely engaged by the world, profoundly flawed, and
unforgettable. As People magazine said about The Master,
“It’s a delicate, mysterious process, this act of creation, fraught with
psychological tension, and Tóibín captures it beautifully.
Praise for The Magician
"As with his triumphant fictional biography of Henry James, The Master (2004),
Tóibín once again takes as his subject a literary titan, the Nobel
laureate Thomas Mann ... Employing luxurious prose that quietly evokes
the tortured soul behind these literary masterpieces, Tóibín has an
unequalled gift for mapping the interior of genius. In Mann, Toibin
finds the ideal muse, one whose interior is so rich and vast that only a
similar genius could hope to capture it."—Booklist, starred review
"As with everything Colm Toibin sets his masterful hand to, The Magician is a great imaginative achievement—immensely readable, erudite, worldly and knowing, and fully realized." —Richard Ford
"This is not just a whole life in a novel, it’s a whole world – with
all its wonders, tragedies and sacrifices. I loved every page of this
beautiful and immersive journey into The Magician’s mind.—Katharina Volckmer author of The Appointment
Colm Tóibín
Colm Tóibín is the Irish author of ten novels, including The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster, as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University. Three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Tóibín lives in Dublin and New York.
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