Magic Time

From the Publisher

"Doug Marlette has captured something essential about the spirit of our age."—The New York Times Book Review

"Glorious and deeply moving. Perfectly captures a time of epic change."—Kirkus Reviews

"A compelling legal thriller, touching tribute, and zesty love story rolled into one."—The Boston Globe

"Doug Marlette unravels a powerful plot that straddles every genre, from historical fiction to love story."—Daily News (New York)

"Charming, engaging, and gripping . . . Magic Time presents a realistic portrait of the collective amnesia of the South and the generational tensions that the civil rights movement stirred up, then and now."—The Washington Post "A compulsively readable style and a wry sense of humor . . . There are no signs of a sophomore slump here. Magic Time usefully reminds us of a dark moment in our nation's recent past, of what has changed and how much has not."—The Star-News (Wilmington, North Carolina)

"Marlette skillfully twines the raucous immediacy of things present with the misty remembrance of things past to demonstrate afresh how these two universal abstractions play off each other and ultimately lead us to meaning."—The News & Observer

"Magic Time ultimately succeeds as both a heartfelt novel and a serious one too, under-girded by a keen eye for historical and social detail, driven forward by a sense of justice, and revealing in so many instances a sometimes-surprising optimism and a generous sense of humanity."—Metro Magazine (North Carolina)

"Magic Time has wonderfully drawn characters and is a good tale, all around."—The Sun News (Myrtle Beach)

"Marlette's sense of place and his belief in the authenticity of the Southern voice is powerful."—Chattanooga Times Free Press "Doug Marlette takes us deep into the heart of America, and deeper into the American heart. Marlette writes with acuity and intelligence, with broad humor and a precise, loving attention to detail. His past and present not only lives and breathes, it lingers and haunts your soul."—Joe Klein, author of Primary Colors "Doug Marlette asks urgent questions about society and directs us to look for the answers within our own hearts. His kind intelligence shows through in every word. He's one of my favorite writers."—Kaye Gibbons, author of Ellen Foster

"I have always loved that word 'page-turner,' and that is just what Doug Marlette has given us with Magic Time. He bridges the modern South to one of its bleakest, most violent periods and does so with a story that you can't put down. I love the way Marlette brings my South to life with all its glory and warts. With this book, with the dilemma that modern-day Southerners find themselves in because of their ancestors' actions, we see once again what Faulkner meant about how the past isn't dead, or even past."—Rick Bragg, author of All Over But the Shoutin' and Ava's Man "Doug Marlette knows how to make a reader turn the page, again and again, with rising excitement. But he's after more than that in Magic Time. He sets out to fill in the canvas of the modern South with the darker colors of its history. He shows us every kind of Southerner, from the noblest to the worst. He makes his characters answer for who they are and where they come from, but he loves them—all of them. We can't ask for more from a novelist or a novel."—Mark Childress, author of Crazy in Alabama and One Mississippi

Christopher Dickey

“The cunning of the South,” Ransom says, “is that we act on our worst instincts and convince ourselves they’re our best.” With his caricatures in Magic Time, and in that phrase, Marlette has captured something essential about the spirit of our age.
— The New York Times

W. Ralph Eubanks

… Magic Time presents a realistic portrait of the collective amnesia of the South and the generational tensions that the civil rights movement stirred up, then and now. It's a real Mississippi story, not merely a faded imitation.
— The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

When a terrorist group bombs a Manhattan museum, New York Examiner columnist Carter Ransom suffers an emotional breakdown and returns to his Mississippi hometown, Troy, to convalesce. Carter's father, Judge Ransom, has just retired after 40 years on the bench there; his most famous case was presiding over Troy's national disgrace: the Shiloh Church bombing, in which four civil rights activists died in 1965. At the time, Carter was a local rookie journalist who met and fell in love with Sarah Solomon, one of the volunteers who died. One man was convicted, but the instigator, Samuel Bohanon, the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, went free. Now, as Carter begins to understand that he has never fully come to terms with Sarah's death, an ambitious young state attorney is reopening the Shiloh Church bombing case-and she's going after Bohanon, along with anyone who stands in her way, including Carter's father, who, rumors say, threw the first trial to spare Sam. While this capacious second novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning Kudzu cartoonist Marlette (The Bridge) doesn't travel any new turf (and despite the over-the-top climax), the author writes of the South with such affection that the novel becomes one of those stories a reader doesn't mind revisiting. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In Marlette's second novel (after The Bridge), investigative journalist Carter Ransom returns to his deceptively quiet hometown of Troy, MS, after a mental breakdown only to face ghosts from the Sixties. At that time, local Klansmen had burned a church, killing both worshipers and civil rights activists. One hit man was sent to prison by Carter's father, Judge Mitchell Ransom, but now, decades later, he has been paroled and after a change of heart turns states' evidence to convict others at the top. The trial for the accused, Sam Bohanon, a local businessman and former imperial wizard, opens old wounds and puts Troy in the media spotlight. Carter fears that his father covered up the real killers' identity to protect an old family friend, and he even suspects his father was being blackmailed over his affair with one of the Klansmen's wives. Childhood friends, memories of a more "magic time," and an attractive federal prosecutor help Carter sort through his uncertainties. Marlette, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, has written a powerful and eloquent novel filled with all the emotions and fury of the early Sixties. Highly recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/06.]-Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A middle-aged New York columnist re-explores a personal tragedy that occurred during the Civil Rights era. The son of Judge Mitchell Ransom has been in New York for some time, a rising star in the newsPerfectly captures a time of epic change. An exceptional work of Southern fiction.