A Patchwork Planet, Exposure and The Magician's Assistant

I'm gradually catching up on my Anne Tyler's. Number eight, A Patchwork Planet"  has such an unpromising start, I wondered if it might be my last. I needn't have worried. Forty pages in it turns into one of her best. The story of Barnaby Gaitlin, (the black sheep of the Gaitlins) is superbly written in the first person, how does Tyler do it? It just shows how a domestic drama can be witty, happy, sad and so poignant. 

Barnaby does a lot of work for old people. He tells us "At Rent-a-Back I knew couple who'd been married for almost ever-forty, fifty, sixty years. Seventy two, in one case. They'd be tending each other's illnesses, filling in each other's faulty memories, dealing with the money troubles or the daughter's suicide or the grandson's drug addiction." (Here it gets interesting). "And I was beginning to suspect that it made no difference whether they'd married the right person. Finally, you're just with who you're with. You've signed on with her, put in half a century with her, grown to know her as well as you know yourself, or even better, and she's become the right person. Or the only person, more to the point. I wish someone had told me that earlier." Just brilliant.

Not my favourite book from one of my favourite authors. This time she is far more interested in the plot than anything else. Exposure is a cold war thriller that I read in a rush, not the usual dramas in which Helen Dunmore excels. The characters are still well drawn as ever, and she captures the atmosphere of 1960 England perfectly. I would just rather have one of her novels to savour rather than get to the ending a s quickly as possible.

We never meet Parsifal the Magician, "PARSIFAL IS DEAD" are the words that start this wonderful book. But through the memories of Sabine, The Magician's Assistant, he is so much alive. The glimpses of the past are superbly written. The complicated relationship of Parsifal, Sabine and Phan gradually unfolds. Also, I'm not a big fan of how dreams are described, but here they feel just right.

The biggest surprise in Sabine's life leads her from a balmy winter in Los Angeles to the snowy spaces of Nebraska. The contrast is brilliantly described. This is my fourth Ann Patchett novel. We read State of Wonder for book club, but Bel Canto, Run and now The Magician's Assistant are all much better.