The Magician: A Novel [B0482]

2022 PB. 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). "An arresting portrait of a brilliant writer, capturing Thomas Mann's broad humanity and complex personal life, in Colm Tóibín's ever broad palette."-a GoodReads reviewer.

The Magician 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 longs for a charismatic, beautiful, rich, cultured young Jewish man, but marries his twin sister. He longs for a boy he sees on a beach in Venice and writes a the novel Death in Venice about him. 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.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Slow start for me - long chapters so it felt harder to get through, but it picks up in the middle. Beautifully written and such an interesting perspective on this dark time in history. This book got me thinking that maybe I am a historical fiction fan!"; "This is a wonderful and absorbing book - I didn't know anything about Mann so was able to read it as though it was a total fiction. I love how it spans such a huge period of time and how it captures the slow rise of terrible things and what that might actually feel like."