The Last Magician

by Janette Turner Hospital

"A story of high tension and terrifying allure....Her writing has perfect pitch."―Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times The Last Magician is about power and betrayal, sexual obsession and social ostracism. At its center is Lucy, a good girl and a whore, whose nights are spent in a kaleidoscope of identities as she dons the masks her customers demand. Charlie is a photographer, filmmaker, voyeur, and the last magician―monitoring Lucy, piecing together the splinters of evidence surrounding the death of a child and a murder that happened half a lifetime ago. A New York Times Notable Book. Reading group guide included.

Genres: Fiction, Australia, Canada, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Fantasy, Literature

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 4, 1992

About the author

Born in 1942, Janette Turner Hospital grew up on the steamy sub-tropical coast of Australia in the north-eastern state of Queensland. She began her teaching career in remote Queensland high schools, but since her graduate studies she has taught in universities in Australia, Canada, England, France and the United States.

Her first published short story appeared in the Atlantic Monthly (USA) where it won an 'Atlantic First' citation in 1978. Her first novel, The Ivory Swing (set in the village in South India where she lived in l977) won Canada's $50,000 Seal Award in l982. She lived for many years in Canada and in 1986 she was listed as by the Toronto Globe & Mail as one of Canada's 'Ten Best Young Fiction Writers'. Since then she has won a number of prizes for her eight novels and four short story collections and her work has been published in multiple foreign language collections. Three of her short stories appeared in Britain's annual Best Short Stories in English in their year of publication and one of these, 'Unperformed Experiments Have No Results', was selected for The Best of the Best, an anthology of the decade in l995.

The Last Magician, her fifth novel, was listed by Publishers' Weekly as one of the 12 best novels published in 1992 in the USA and was a New York Times 'Notable Book of the Year'. Oyster, her sixth novel, was a finalist for Australia's Miles Franklin Prize Award and for Canada's Trillium Award, and in England it was listed in 'Best Books of the Year' by The Observer, which noted "Oyster is a tour de force… Turner Hospital is one of the best female novelists writing in English." In the USA, Oyster was a New York Times 'Notable Book of the Year'.

Due Preparations for the Plague won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award in 2003, the Davitt Award from Sisters in Crime for "best crime novel of the year by an Australian woman”, and was shortlisted for the Christina Stead Award. In 2003, Hospital received the Patrick White Award, as well as a Doctor of Letters honoris causa from the University of Queensland.

Orpheus Lost, her most recent novel, was one of five finalists for the $110,000 Australia-Asia Literary prize in 2008.

Orpheus Lost was also on Booklist's Top 30 novels of the year in 2008, along with novels by Booker Prize winner Anne Enright, National Book Award winner Denis Johnson, Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Michael Ondaatje, Ian MacEwan, Ha Jin, and Michael Chabon.

The novel also made the list of Best 25 Books of the Year of Library Journal, and Hospital was invited to be a keynote speaker at the annual convention of the American Library Association in Los Angeles in June 2008.

The Italian edition, Orfeo Perduto, has been so well-received in Italy that it will be a featured title at the literary festival on Lake Maggiore in June 2010 where Hospital will be a featured author.

She holds an endowed chair as Carolina Distinguished Professor of English at the University of South Carolina and in 2003 received the Russell Research Award for Humanities and Social Sciences, conferred by the university for the most significant faculty contribution (research, publication, teaching and service) in a given year.

Reviews

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever, interesting, original, character based novel that starts off as a difficult read for the first 20% of the book. Thereafter the novel has good plot momentum. Charlie, Cat, Robbie and Catherine shared a childhood summer in a Queensland rainforest near Brisbane. A tragedy occurs and all the children go to different schools. Decades later, festering memories come to the forefront when Charlie, Cat, Robbie and Catherine see one another in Sydney.

The characters are interesting and well developed. Charlie is a photographer who takes many photos, superimposing photos on other photos and within photos. In the first 20% of the book, there are many descriptions of Charlie’s photographic art works. Cat becomes a prostitute. She is a rebel at school and outside school she causes trouble with a father who cannot control her and no mother. Robbie becomes a lawyer after attending a private school and university. He is drawn to Cat, and fails to dominate her. Catherine also attends private school, becoming a successful television presenter.

A book worth rereading.

This book was shortlisted for the 1993 Miles Franklin award.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books)]

Abandoned 20% of the way in. The writing is excellent, but the story seems to be being told predominantly through extended descriptions of an artist's arthousey films and photographs, and the main character's reactions to them. I am not a particularly visual person, and so this mode of storytelling simply doesn't engage me.

[Anne MacDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first section was difficult for me, probably because it alludes to characters I hadn't met yet and situations that hadn't happened yet. I might have given up if it had not come so highly recommended by a friend. I was glad I stuck it out because I was hooked from the second part on. It's obviously a book that begs to be read more than once. I went back and skimmed the first few pages when I finished reading the book, and several times, I said to myself, "Oh, yeah, I get it now."

[Anne_MB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Brisbane & Sydney, about a group of adults who shared a calamitous and life-changing event as children. I found the beginning section of the book difficult but enjoyed the book more and more as it progressed.

[Ma'lis Wendt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story of intersecting lives in Australia

[Trisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book. It is a labyrinthine journey through the very essence of the human psyche. Its foibles, its motivations, its self-preservation, deprivation, justification, escape and release. Betrayal and loyalty, acceptance and rejection, power, privilege, trauma. Coincidence?

It is a most masterful examination of what drives us, set in familiar surrounds, amongst a group of disparate people. It was, at first, seemingly confusing. It wasn’t until I had devoured the first half that I realised it was really a jigsaw puzzle, but instead of seeing all the pieces and choosing for myself, the pieces were presented to me by the author. When I was screaming for a blue piece, she offered only green or red. Shape-shifting and time-warping, the author shows us in snippets and crumbs. If I tried to include my most favourite parts, I would fill endless pages.

I am unable to tie this work up in a neat little bow and tell you what it is about. Find out for yourself - I hope you will not be disappointed, but I care not. I believe it to be a masterpiece of exquisite language, and the most visual storytelling I have ever read. Not a book. An experience.

[Alexandrya Reeves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much like her other book, Oyster, Turner-Hospital throws you in the middle of a story and let’s the story reveal itself through puzzles and poetry and symbolism. I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone who doesn’t enjoy more literary works and at times the book was even too much for me. I find with her books I often have to push myself through the first 1/4 of her books in order to have the extremely gratifying pay off. She has a unique talent of making the reader feel disgusted, on edge and completely unnerved. Look forward to reading more off her novels however I think I need a break for a while. As someone who grew up in all of the places she mentioned, shitty suburbs in Sydney, Wilston and Samford, fortitude valley, the book at times was difficult to read I felt like my mind had been invaded. She captured the essence of Brisbane, Sydney and those specific suburbs so well and my memory of them. So much so I felt exposed reading it. Made me reflect on my own unspoken childhood truths, the Queenslander habit of suppressing hasn’t changed since Hospital-Turner was growing up I suppose. Worth the read.

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very odd sort of a book. I might just be delirious from an overly busy week but in some ways it made me think of a "Wuthering Heights" in negative with Cat as a sort of Heathcliff negative and Lucy as Lockwood (except too passionately engaged in life instead of too detatched). Is that fair? Otherwise I am not really sure what Lucy was even doing in the story (her account of herself was odd).

Lucy. Light. To go with Gabriel? I remember from Oyster that Turner Hospital has names that mean something (also Charlie, Cat, Catherine all Cs; Charlie C and Gabriel G. Robinson and Roslyn...an excess of aliteration). I should hate it for the self-conscious "wisdom" but the author does this well. Even the over-explained and slow-moving bits, the very drawn out ending that goes nowhere after we know (or do we?).

I felt a lot of emotions reading this and some were frustration but it was very good nonetheless.

[Ele Pawelski · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the synopsis, the execution of the actual book was meh. Some good turns of phrase now and again but I couldn't figure out how some of the characters were related and make enough sense of the story itself. I've owned this book for ages and finally plowed through it and am happy for that.

[Renata · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up reading this novel after some 75 pages. I just could not get which character's head I was in.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glorious story-telling, plotting and characterisation from a magnificent writer.

[Mingaudė]

Sadly, lost the access to the book. Dropped until second attempt; I really did like the book.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Currently reading. Recommended by a McGill University Fine Arts professor. Difficult getting to the plot line. Intriguing though. Will plunge ahead. Makes me think of Rauschenberg!

[Sheena · Rating 3 out of 5]

A challenging book! Beautifully written and intelligent, but hard to get into at the beginning and understand what is happening. Worth persevering with as all becomes clear(ish) in the second part, but almost impenetrable in places. A novel I won't forget, and glad I got to the end!

[Madelyn Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

My interaction with The Last Magician was as uneven as the text felt to me. I picked it up, I grew bored. I picked it up again, and was confused. I picked it up and became intrigued, then amazed, then muddled. I picked it up, started reading again, and couldn't put it down, but only after I had read 150 pages. The characters will stay with me; I want to sit quietly and digest what I just read. Hospital's descriptions are similar to her Charlie's photographs: multi-layered, convoluted, picturesque as well as horrific, and completely necessary to the book. I would recommend The Last Magician, with the advice to stick with it.

[Cylia Kamp · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with her other excellent novels (see Oyster and Orpheus Lost), Turner-Hospital has again created a detailed nightmarish world, this time comparing an open-pit mine and its workers in Brazil with the underground dwellings and poverty-stricken inhabitants of Sydney's inner city. There's even a mystery to boot. But at present I'm not in the mood for such darkness. Maybe I'll pick it up again later. For now though I'm pushing back to the "To Read" category.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

The description doesn't do this novel justice. This is a novel about friendship among people who have not figured out how to live in the world. It is about the social cages that we do and do not accept and about our willingness or unwillingness to see honestly the world around us. This is one of the few novels I have read twice. It is allegorical and complex and well written.

[Sam Hopgood · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a little while to get into the groove of this book. Lots of random puzzle pieces being thrown around led to confusion but persistence was rewarded in the end. Loved it.

[Mark Bodhi Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning novel! The prose is immaculate, the story is gripping. And the lesson one can learn from it is wonderful. I was hooked at the first paragraph.

[Velvetink]

bargain = 1 of 29 books for $5.

[Jake · Rating 1 out of 5]

With the exception of another book by Turner Hospital, rarely if ever have I been in so much pain as I struggled to finish a book I was obligated to read. I loathed it.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hospital has crafted a complex novel, and one that really needs to be read more than once to appreciate.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book that is difficult to classify, set in a part-real, part-fantasy version of Australia

[Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

All-time fave

[Mark Schulman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Debra Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. A great puzzle that surprises and makes you think. Amazingly beautifully written.

[Lisa Houlihan]

gr

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

otherworldly, disturbing, but beautiful writing.

[The Chicks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kelly's pick (last time I take a recommendation without reading it first)