Mary Cassatt, Mirror(May 2) I liked this better than The Magician’s Assistant, in that it had much more of the ambiance of Bel Canto, which I loved, but it is nonetheless much more like The Magician’s Assistant than Bel Canto, alas.
It’s another one of those early-Kingsolver-style sagas about a female loner who abandons her life in one culture to go and live in a completely foreign one (both cultures are American in this case and in The Magician’s Assistant, and in at least two Kingsolvers). What’s worse, the central character is a blank drifter, like the main characters in Housekeeping -- peaceful sociopaths à la Martha Stout. I don’t see the fascination with these characters.
Still, I was surprised to learn afterwards that The Patron Saint of Liars (1992) is actually older than The Magician’s Assistant (1997) -- it had some of the magical atmosphere of Bel Canto (2001), and thus seemed nearer to it chronologically than that ironically unmagical Magician’s Assistant. Also, it was likable for providing some powerful insights into mother-daughter and, really, all female relationships.
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