MAJIK

In Coon’s novel, a young man overcomes devastating losses to become a world-renowned magician.

Chris Maglie’s parents were murdered when he was just 8 years old. He shuffled between foster homes in Las Vegas, was living alone by the age of 14, and dropped out of high school in his junior year. While delivering the Los Angeles Times along the Strip, however, he was already planning his next act: to become a performing magician, using his unusual ability to conjure illusions of lizards and other creatures, seemingly out of thin air, which he claims is “not a trick.” When Chris pulls a live anaconda from his shirt sleeve at the Castaways Hotel and Casino, the head of the place is so impressed that he offers Chris a job on the spot. Performing under the stage name Christopher Majik, he soon becomes the biggest star in Vegas, dazzling crowds with three-dimensional apparitions of lions, zebras, and even a talking hippo named Henrietta, who can sing: “Henrietta’s mouth was huge; you could easily put a large watermelon in it. The high-pitched soprano coming out of it was hysterical.” Before long, Chris outgrows Castaways and moves to Nero’s Colosseum with his assistant and soon-to-be wife, Dorothy Devito—but Chris later suffers yet another devastating loss, leaving him shattered. Coon’s novel certainly offers an intriguing premise, and it succeeds in tracing the full sweep of a life from youth to old age; however, it sacrifices emotional depth and relatability in the process. Key moments in Chris’ life, such as his marriage to Dorothy and the later tragedy, feel rushed, leaving little room for the novel to explore their significance or their aftermath. The narrative’s rapid movement through the protagonist’s milestones—especially toward the end—flattens the arc of his life, reducing many moments to fleeting scenes and undercutting their immediacy. Meanwhile, Chris, as a character, seems too good to be true at times—less a fully drawn character than a mythic ideal.

A novel with an initially dazzling concept that loses its magic as it progresses.