LESSONS IN MAGIC AND DISASTER

Can magic solve all your problems? Unlikely, says this thoughtful, impactful work of fantasy.

Jamie, a trans graduate student, needs to find that piece of evidence that will give direction to her Ph.D. dissertation about 18th-century female authors, even as her university threatens to pull her funding and she faces misogyny and transphobia every day in the classes she teaches. She’s also trying to reconnect with her mother, Serena, who is suffering from a crippling depression stemming from the long-ago death of her wife, Mae, and the ruin of her career as a social justice activist by the leader of a right-wing smear group. So Jamie shares something with Serena that she hasn’t even shared with her nonbinary spouse, Ro: Jamie can do magic. She performs rituals that she hopes will make her small desires real in the world. Serena takes to this practice, but almost immediately seeks to enact larger, angrier spells, with effects that neither she nor Jamie can anticipate or control, profoundly disrupting both of their lives. This compact novel is about many things: a literary treasure hunt that strongly recalls A.S. Byatt’s Possession; the struggle to negotiate obligations to parents, spouses, and oneself; moving forward from grief; and a self-taught witch’s fraught journey toward understanding her own magic. But underlying everything is this profound question: How do minority groups (in this case, specifically, those in the LGBTQ+ community) fight effectively and ethically against the tolerance of intolerance? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to magically smite the powerful figures who discriminate, disenfranchise, and endanger the vulnerable through indifference or cruelty? Unfortunately, it’s never that easy, not in real life and not in fiction.

Much to ponder, much to cry over and rage against, much to appreciate.