

The nightly replay of a video of that show became a family ritual of hope, especially for Kitty's two boys, now teenagers as desperate to get away as their uncle had been. After he did time in the reformatory, his family lost touch with him completely-until one night when they saw him and Sabine on the Johnny Carson show. She gets more than she bargained for when older sister Kitty, herself married to an abusive husband, reveals that Parsifal had accidentally killed his father in trying to keep him from beating their pregnant mother. And so, lonely and still paralyzed with grief, Sabine decides to visit them in the dead of a Nebraska winter, hoping for relief and some answers. Seemingly decent folk, the two women return home leaving her mystified as to why Parsifal (born Guy Fetters) would have denied their existence. He also left a rude surprise: The family he always spoke of as dead is in fact alive and well in Alliance, Nebraska-and his mother and younger sister are soon on their way to see Sabine. When Parsifal the Magician died suddenly of an aneurism, he left his assistant of 22 years, the statuesque Sabine, whom he'd recently married after his longtime gay partner Phan's death, heartbroken and numb. woman, who lost the love of her life after a few short months of marriage, finds unexpected consolation from her husband's family-a family she never knew he had. Having produced wonders in two earlier novels (The Patron Saint of Liars, 1992 Taft, 1994), Patchett here conjures up a striking tale of pain and enchantment as an L.A.
