- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Harper Perennial US; Reprint edition (Jan 17 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0380806576
- ISBN-13: 978-0380806577
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 12.7 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 340 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,293,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Contemporary New York becomes a shadowy hub of interdimensional travel in this wildly imaginative, postmodern tale of magic, mystery, murder and romance. On a snowy streetcorner in lower Manhattan, Leo, a 30-year-old freelance photographer, meets elusive, strangely beautiful Veronica, a magician's daughter and assistant. Lured to see her again, he is swept into a mystically disjointed world. Veronica's father disappeared during an ambitious time-travel demonstration sabotaged by Starwood, a jealous former apprentice who's now a dangerous practitioner of black magic. Veronica and a small group of family and friends have spent the last 10 years preparing to bring her father back from his limbo, and the bewildered Leo will be an important part of their perilous plan. Poet (5*) and novelist (The Soloist, 1986) Christopher's wryly evocative prose is laden with magical symbols and motifs drawn from Tibetan mysticism as well as European traditions. Dramatic imagery and swift pacing draw the reader into a bizarre but alluring mystery. Having researched Manhattan's subterranean water supplies and other invisible components of the city, Christopher creates a new, not quite fantastic map of the Big Apple. This darkly seductive tale maintains a dreamy urgency that keeps the reader intrigued until its poignant, hypnotic conclusion.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
From its opening at the "improbable point where Waverly Place intersects Waverly Place," this phantasmagorical novel leads you on a magical mystery tour of Manhattan. Leo, the hero, is drawn into a family's attempt to reconnect (literally) with their magician father, who has been hijacked to a kind of limbo for the past ten years by a jealous apprentice. If you can suspend belief and accept time travel, arm-severing hoods, stairways that disappear as you walk down them, and twins with mirror-symmetrical eyes (one who looks 30, the other, 80), you will enjoy this ride. Christopher, who also writes short stories and poetry (Five Degrees and Other Poems, Penguin 1995), builds his world?rather, worlds?with a wealth of detail. Sometimes the characterization is weak, but this is not a tale of Sturm und Drang?it is a novel of incidents and magic. "A good lock when it's opened should sound like a pair of stones clicking underwater," the title character says early in this novel. Indeed, Christopher has unlocked a rich fantasy world that, despite being dangerous, is extremely enticing. Insert the key, strike the stones, read this book. Recommended for all fiction collections.?Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P. L., Bloomington, Ind.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
IN LOWER MANHATTAN there is an improbable point where Waverly Place intersects Waverly Place. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
IN LOWER MANHATTAN there is an improbable point where Waverly Place intersects Waverly Place. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nifty Fantasy Ride Thru NYC & The Galaxy!!,
By
This review is from: Veronica (Paperback)
If you're looking for a wild ride of time/space/dimension travel, this ones hard to beat! Beautifully written, near flawless in conception, this book journeys through Elizabethan England (with Sir Walter Raleigh at his death), Lower Manhattan, the entire Empire State Bulding, Tibetan myth and magic, an unknown South American island, and some of the most bizarre characters you'll ever run into, including the fellow whose life revolves aroung the number "8"! Give this whrlwind adventure through magical and fantastical Gotham (and lots of the universe), and you'll have a thrill-filled ride!
3.0 out of 5 stars
Read "A Trip to the Stars" Instead...,
By KP (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Veronica (Paperback)
I just could not connect with this book, or feel really involved with the plot or its characters. I think this is due to the symbolism that I don't understand. Christopher obviously did his research with this one, as evidenced by the 'Recommended Reading' at the back. However, since I haven't read "Magic and Mystery in Tibet," or "My Journey to Lhasa," or "The History of Magic," I have a sneaking suspicion that I don't understand what was meant by the heavy use of symbolism in the novel. Oranges, a blue and yellow bird, golden wings... these are among the cast of symbols that appear and reappear constantly in the novel, but I have no idea what exactly they are supposed to mean or indicate.Also, the main character in this novel leaves something to be desired. Leo seemed to me to be too passive, lacking a real personality. Although we see through his eyes, I don't feel like our vision was colored at all by his personality or interpretation of what was happening to him. Perhaps he is supposed to be intoxicated by Veronica, the novel's namesake, but Veronica didn't command such a presence in my mind. The book was still good, and other viewers are right-- this book will take you on a fantastic journey. However, since I read it after "A Trip to the Stars," [now one of my favorite books] I was disappointed. My recommendation is to read "A Trip to the Stars" first. If you like it and like Christopher's writing, then read "Veronica."
4.0 out of 5 stars
Poetical magical realism,
By
This review is from: Veronica (Paperback)
Nicholas Christopher's Veronica will always be linked in my mind to the movie Rough Magic starring Bridgit Fonda and Russell Crowe. There are many obvious similarities, such as magician's assistants and the magic realist feel. But they will mainly be linked in my mind because I experienced them at the same time: I was in the middle of reading Veronica when I decided to take a break and see Rough Magic. This served to enhance the link that was already quite strong. (For what it is worth, I would be interested in reading Rough Magic's source material, James Hadley Chase's short story, "Miss Shumley Waves a Wand"--at least that's what I recall the title being.)Leo, our hero, stumbles across the eponymous title character in New York City on a winter night. He quickly finds himself involved in an illusion of magicians, with blind Japanese courtesans, identical twins, and secret societies. He, of course, falls in love, but things are not so cut and dried as to be predictable. Christopher is an accomplished poet, and Veronica is his second novel, the first from a major press. On a sentence by sentence level, I can hardly fault him, but he does not have as sure a hand when it comes to plotting. After a great start, the book bogs in the middle as the coincidences and conspiracies add up, and then it's an all-out sprint to the grand climax. I liked it, but that's because it punched several of my pleasure buttons. I would hesitate to recommend it to strangers without asking them about their literary preferences.
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