The Magician's Girl

The Magician's Girl tells a story of three New York women who meet at Barnard in the late 1930s and fulfill their separate destinies from the 1940s to 1978. Minna Grant, a fanatical swimmer in her youth, becomes a professor of history. Liz Becker, child of Greenich Village boheimian parents, achieves fame as a renowned photographer. Maud Noon, who as a girl suffered the loss of a beloved brother, becomes a respected poet. The Magician's Girl is an immensely involving story about the varieties of love and passion. Lyrical, dramatic, and wise, Grumbach's novel is rich with evocations of America's past, from the flavors of New York City to academic life in the 1970s.