Synopses & Reviews
A prize-winning Southern master storyteller weaves a riveting tale of love, mystery and justice When the Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Doug Marlette last turned to fiction, Valerie Sayers rejoiced in The Washington Post Book World: “The Bridge [is] a great story—exuberant, proud, myth-challenging—and Marlette has a great, Dickensian time with the telling.” Pat Conroy saluted The Bridge as the finest first novel to come out of North Carolina since Look Homeward, Angel. Studs Turkel called it “enthralling.” Kaye Gibbons marveled at its “extraordinary grace [and] humor.” And the Southeast Booksellers Association gave The Bridge the 2002 Book Award for Fiction. Marlette’s new novel, Magic Time, is a spellbinding stew of history, murder, courtroom drama, humor, love, betrayal, and justice. Moving between New York City and the New South of the early 1990s, with flashbacks to Mississippi’s cataclysmic Freedom Summer of 1964, Magic Time tells the story of New York newspaper columnist Carter Ransom, a son of Mississippi, who had the great fortune and terrible luck of falling in love that summer of ‘64 with a New York–born civil rights worker who wound up being killed alongside three coworkers. Carter’s father, the local judge, presided over the first trial of the murders. But now there’s evidence that the original trial was flawed, even fraudulent. And the question, among many others, is whether the good judge was knowingly involved in a cover-up. Magic Time is that rare thing: a page-turner whose driving plot line is matched by the depth of its moral vision.
Review
"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 (starred review)
"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
Synopsis
A prize-winning Southern master storyteller weaves a riveting tale of love, mystery and justice When the Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Doug Marlette last turned to fiction,
The Washington Post hailed his storytelling: “Marlette has a great, Dickensian time with the telling.” Pat Conroy, another southern master, saluted it as the finest North Carolina novel since
Look Homeward, Angel. And the Southeast Booksellers Association named Marlette’s
The Bridge as the best novel of 2002.
Now Marlette returns to the territory with the spellbinding Magic Time, which follows a New York City newspaper columnist, Carter Ransom, as he returns home to Mississippi after an emotional breakdown, to face a formidable father he disappointed and a traumatic past he has long repressed. It’s a past that is now = back in the news with the reopening of a twenty-five-year-old unsolved civil rights murder case that shattered his family—the truth of which may shatter the family once again.
Moving between New York City and the New South of the early 1990s, with flashbacks to Mississippi’s cataclysmic Freedom Summer of 1964, Magic Time is at once a powerful love story, a courtroom drama, and a vivid and unsentimental portrait of a generation whose coming-of-age coincided with one of the most sensational turning points in American history, the civil rights revolution.
Synopsis
Carter Ransom, a son of Mississippi, had the great fortune and terrible luck of falling in love in '64 with a New York-born civil rights worker who was killed. Carter's father presided over the first trial of the murders, but now the question, among many others, is whether the good judge was knowingly involved in a cover-up.
Synopsis
Pulitzer Prize-winning Marlett returns with "Magic Time," a spellbinding story that follows New York City newspaper columnist Carter Ransom on his journey home to Mississippi after an emotional breakdown. As he faces his disappointed father and the reopening of a 25-year-old unsolved civil rights murder case, the truth of it all may be more than he or his family can bear.
Synopsis
A prize-winning Southern master storyteller weaves a riveting tale of love, mystery and justice When the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette last turned to fiction, Valerie Sayers rejoiced in The Washington Post Book World: The Bridge is a great story--exuberant, proud, myth-challenging--and Marlette has a great, Dickensian time with the telling. Pat Conroy saluted The Bridge as the finest first novel to come out of North Carolina since Look Homeward, Angel. Studs Turkel called it enthralling. Kaye Gibbons marveled at its extraordinary grace and humor. And the Southeast Booksellers Association gave The Bridge the 2002 Book Award for Fiction. Marlette's new novel, Magic Time, is a spellbinding stew of history, murder, courtroom drama, humor, love, betrayal, and justice. Moving between New York City and the New South of the early 1990s, with flashbacks to Mississippi's cataclysmic Freedom Summer of 1964, Magic Time tells the story of New York newspaper columnist Carter Ransom, a son of Mississippi, who had the great fortune and terrible luck of falling in love that summer of '64 with a New York-born civil rights worker who wound up being killed alongside three coworkers. Carter's father, the local judge, presided over the first trial of the murders. But now there's evidence that the original trial was flawed, even fraudulent. And the question, among many others, is whether the good judge was knowingly involved in a cover-up. Magic Time is that rare thing: a page-turner whose driving plot line is matched by the depth of its moral vision.
Synopsis
Born and raised in Mississippi, Carter Ransom came to New York as a young man and has risen to become a columnist with a major city newspaper. But when his life in New York falls apart and he heads back home to recover, the still-live conflicts of his youth in the civil rights era rise up all around him again. A twenty-five-year-old murder case has just been reopened, a church bombing that killed Carter's first love. Carter's father was the judge in the case, and now there's evidence that the trial was flawed, even fixed, and the case's reopening threatens the foundation of Carter's identity, as well as his relationship to his family.
Moving between New York City and the New South of the early 1990s, with flashbacks to Mississippi's Freedom Summer of 1964, Magic Time is at once a powerful love story, a courtroom drama, and a complex portrait of the civil rights revolution.
About the Author
Doug Marlette has won every major prize for editorial cartooning including the Pulitzer. His first novel, The Bridge, was honored with the 2002 Book Award for Fiction by the Southeast Booksellers Association. He lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina, with his family.
Reading Group Guide
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the ironies in the novels title. What "magic" did Lige and his team of volunteers achieve? As a locale, what did Magic Time mean to all those who gathered there?
2. What was the effect of the authors use of time lines? Why was it useful to intersperse the 1990s with memories of the 1960s? Does this technique mirror the way your own powerful memories seep into everyday life?
3. How does the E. B. White quote near the beginning of chapter two speak to Carters relationship to New York? How is his sense of identity linked to his sense of place?
4. When have you faced a homecoming similar to Carters and Stephens? What history is always tied to certain locations in your mind, regardless of how much time has passed?
5. What does the history contained in this novel—a fictionalized version of terrorist bombings in New York and of bombings executed by white supremacists—indicate about the way violence has been witnessed in twentieth-century America? How was the SNCC able to gain power without violence?
6. What were the roots of the White Knights racism? Why did so many white supremacists believe they were "protecting" the country from communism? Does race camouflage money, as Carter says near the end of chapter twenty-two?
7. How were so many divergent groups able to unite around the cause of civil rights during the 1960s? What tensions between these groups were illustrated in the novel? At what point does Carter realize that remaining passive is morally unacceptable to him?
8. The parallels between Sarah and Emily are clear. What are the differences between them? Was Carter able to separate his memories of Sarah from his relationship with Emily? Do you agree with Emilys assessment of him in chapter twenty three? What makes Sydney an ideal match for him?
9. Though Magic Time is a work of fiction, it conveys the spirit of recent murder trials of white supremacists who were not brought to justice until three decades after their crimes were committed. In what ways does the book speak to your own knowledge or memories of headlines from this time period? How would you have responded to the cultural turmoil that marked Carters life forever? Why is fiction an important complement to journalism in capturing such events?
10. How did you react to the notion that the Ransoms formed Netties "white family"(last paragraph of chapter nine)? What do you imagine was going through the mind of the African American man hired to tend to Bohannon? What enabled Lige to gain a career in politics, with a level of power never previously held by Troys black citizens?
11. One essential component of civil rights is a citizens access to a voting booth, a cause to which Sarah devoted tireless hours. Did volunteers such as Sarah succeed? Is the American voting system now free from injustice?
12. How does Lonnies background compare to Carters? In what way did fate versus willpower shape their futures? What ties, both tragic and triumphant, bind Carter to his boyhood friends?
13. What is the difference between the power brokers of Troy, such as Glen Boutwell, and the power brokers of New York, such as Marcy Tutweiler? Is status achieved through the same means, no matter where you go?
14. How did your impressions of Carters father evolve throughout the novel? How did you react to his brief affair with Sheppy? What does Hugh represent to the citizens of Troy, and eventually to Carter?
15. In chapter fifteen, we read the story behind Carters name and ancestry, as well as details about the judges war service. How do legacies shape the Ransom family? What did it mean to Carter that he was classified 4-F and therefore disqualified from service in Vietnam? What determines whether we follow or defy these legacies?
16. Discuss the factors in the trial that led to a conviction. What was needed to build a solid case? Besides jury selection procedures, what had changed in Troys judicial system during that thirty- year span?
17. How did Sarahs family respond to Carter? How did his family respond to her?
18. During the chilling hostage scene in chapter twenty-seven, how did you react to the combination of humiliating poses and photographs used to evoke fear and degradation? How did you react to Hullenders use of biblical quotations, particularly in light of Shiloh Church as the crime scene?
19. What do the novels closing events regarding Schlank indicate about new battles to wage, such as environmentalism? What tactics were ultimately successful in that case? What does the future hold for Sydney and Carter?
20. How might the authors career as a leading editorial cartoonist shape his use of dialogue and imagery, and his overall approach as a novelist? What parallels did you discover between Magic Time and his previous novel, The Bridge?