This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage $28.99
New York, NY: Harper Collins (2013)
The New York Times bestselling author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband. Together these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper’s, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love
Ann Patchett’s novels have been feats of imagination-from the tale of an opera singer held hostage inside a vice presidential mansion, to a forgotten tribe along the banks of the Amazon river-she has created entire worlds for the reader to inhabit.
Now, with her new book, she puts fiction aside and invites us into the very real world of her own life. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage is both wide-ranging and deeply personal, overflowing with close observation and emotional wisdom. Stretching from her tumultuous childhood, from a disastrous early marriage and a later happy one, she charts the hard work and joy of writing, and the unexpected thrill of opening a bookstore. Patchett shares stories of the people, places, ideals, and art to which she has remained indelibly committed.
Brimming with thoughtful advice and emotional wisdom, this collection brings into focus the large experiences and small moments that have shaped her as a daughter, wife, writer, and friend. An irresistible blend of literature and memoir, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage is a unique examination of the heart, mind, and soul of one of our most revered and gifted writers.
The Magician’s Assistant $35.00
New York, NY: Harcourt (1997)
What is to become of a magician’s assistant without her magician? This is the question Sabine asks herself after the death of Parsifal, the magician she worked with for more than twenty years and her husband for only a few months. Parsifal loved men, especially Phan, and though Sabine loved Parsifal, she contented herself with his friendship. Now Parsifal and Phan are both gone, and Sabine is left with full responsibility for their possessions and their histories. Always the assistant, her life is still defined by service to Parsifal. But in the world of illusion Sabine has occupied for her entire life, things are rarely what they seem. According to Parsifal, he had no living relatives. Now, with his death, comes the news that he has a mother and two sisters living in Alliance, Nebraska. Inevitably, the strangers will meet and Sabine will be carried away from her beloved Los Angeles to seek the truth of Parsifal’s past in the bitterly windswept steppes of Nebraska in winter. It is here that Sabine will learn the truth about Parsifal’s father, which lies at the heart of his son’s abandonment of his family and of his identity. As the members of Parsifal’s family turn to Sabine for help, she realizes that she is something of a magician herself. In this newfound strength Sabine may at last find the kind of love she had always been denied.