Magician - by Tracy Lynne Oliver (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A dark magic debut novel featuring the Boy who becomes the Magician and the villainous Mother whose sadism might end it all--for fans of Our Share of Night and The Changeling

First, he is a Boy, born to a Mother who cannot abide his existence. Despite her torments, the Boy finds a way to survive and create a small space for himself in the world.

The Boy endures unspeakable cruelties, saved only by a mysterious magic that intervenes in moments of need: magic he learns is his to command. When he finally escapes the Mother, a beguiling circus troupe welcomes him into their family and the Boy begins to imagine a life beyond survival, one where circus lions roar and enchanted forests spiral far into the distance. For the first time, he discovers chosen family, community, and love. He eagerly apprentices under the circus's conjurer--only to realize his gifts far outstrip his mentor's. Thus the Boy becomes the Magician. But as ambition bends his power, a primal threat stalks, determined to destroy not just the Magician, but all he holds dear.

Echoing the fairytale cadence of Helen Oyeyemi and Gerardo Sámano Córdova's disquieting excavation of grief and trauma, Tracy Lynne Oliver has created a spellbinding world of twisted patriarchal darkness and a powerful magic that threatens to consume everyone, including its wielder. A debut novel of uncommon accomplishment, Magician establishes its author as a new voice that will hold readers rapt.

Review Quotes

Praise for Magician:

"An unnamed protagonist runs away and joins the circus, only to discover that his magical powers hold as much potential for freedom as for destruction . . . The writing is lush and sumptuous, and at its best, it conjures the Magician's world with haunting vividness."--Kirkus Reviews

"Tracy Lynne Oliver's vibrant, wrenching, and fantastical horror novel Magician follows the coming-of-age of a gifted boy born and raised in the absence of love and light . . . Horrors hum behind instances of impossible beauty in Magician, a weird and wonderful novel about the alchemistic power of cultivating decency in defiance of cruelty."--Foreword Reviews (starred)

"Full of harrowing twists, spellbinding relationships, and captivating prose. In this hauntingly beautiful debut, Oliver crafts an intricate tale of survival, power, and consequence that will leave readers craving more."--Sydney Gaw, Booklist

"A breathtaking novel that reads like an epic poem of trauma and survival, Magician is a dark modern myth about power, inheritance, and the dangerous line between protection and destruction. The story follows Boy whose only defense against unimaginable cruelty is a dangerous, evolving magic that intervenes when nothing else will. As he grows into the Magician, survival gives way to reckoning. Unflinching in its portrayal of abuse and trauma, yet strikingly beautiful in both its prose and imagery, Tracy Lynne Oliver delivers an unforgettable debut, one that confronts inherited darkness and asks the terrifying question of whether goodness can survive what we do to stay alive."--Constance Sayers, author of The Ladies of the Secret Circus

"Magician is rapturously beautiful and, I would go so far as to say, a perfect novel. Tracy Lynne Oliver's sentences are an excitable reader's dream--as meticulous and decisive as any story could ever want and yet so unforeseeable and inventive they seem to jiggle in place. If you're interested in American fiction at its utmost, this is an event."--Dennis Cooper, author of I Wished

"Magician is a beautiful, brutal, and spellbinding feat of a debut novel written by one of our most captivating living writers."--Amber Tamblyn, author of Any Man and Listening in the Dark: Women Reclaiming the Power of Intuition

"I have been impatiently awaiting a novel by Tracy Lynne Oliver for years. Magician, a dark tale about the Boy, the Mother, and the magic the Boy wields was well worth that wait. With echoes of Mariana Enriquez, Dan Chaon, and Cormac McCarthy, the book hypnotizes, holds you utterly at its mercy. It's rare for me to sink so wholly into a narrative, but sink I did, and I didn't want to come back up."--Lindsay Hunter, author of Hot Springs Drive

About the Author

Tracy Lynne Oliver is a writer based in Los Angeles. She has been published online at a variety of places such as Medium, Fanzine, and Occulum. She co-authored the graphic novel, The Sacrifice of Darkness, with Roxane Gay. Her story, "This Weekend" included in Best Microfiction 2019.