Son of a Witch - Gregory Maguire new softcover book Volume 2 in the Wicked Years

 SON OF A WITCH

Volume 2 of the Wicked Years

by GREGORY MAGUIRE

See other fiction at The Bookshelf of Oz click here

New softcover book, 448 pages.

A decade after the Witch has melted away, the young man Liir is discovered bruised, comatose, and left for dead in a gully. Shattered in spirit as well as in form, he is tended by the mysterious Candle, a foundling in her own right, until failed campaigns of his childhood bear late, unexpected fruit.

In this captivating New York Times bestseller, beloved author Gregory Maguire returns to the land of Oz and introduces us to Liir, an adolescent boy last seen hiding in the shadows of the castle after Dorothy did in the Witch. Bruised, comatose, and left for dead in a gully, Liir is shattered in spirit as well as in form. At the Cloister of Saint Glinda the silent novice Candle tends to him, willing him back to life with her unusual musical gifts. What dark force left Liir in this condition? Is he really Elphaba's son? He has her broom and her cape--but what of her powers? Can he find his half-sister, Nor, last seen in the forbidding prison Southstairs? Can he fulfill the last wishes of a dying princess? In an Oz that, since the Wizard's departure, is under new and dangerous management, can Liir keep his head down long enough to grow up?

When a Witch dies - not as a crone, withered and incapable, but as a woman in her prime, at the height of her passion and prowess - too much is left unsaid. What might have happened had Elphaba lived? Of her campaigns in defense of the Animals, of her appetite for justice, of her talent for magic itself, what good might have come? If every death is a tragedy, the death of a woman in her prime keenly bereaves the whole world.

Son of a Witch returns to the land of Oz to follow the story of Liir, the adolescent boy left hiding in the shadows of the castle when Dorothy did in the Witch. Gregory Maguire suggests that the magic we locate in distant, improbable places like Oz is no greater than the magic inherent in any hard life lived fully, son of a witch or no.

About the author

Gregory Maguire is the author of six novels for adults and more than a dozen novels for children. His adult novels are: Wicked (1995); Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (1999); Lost (2001); Mirror Mirror (2003); Son of a Witch (2005); and A Lion Among Men (2008). Wicked, Son of a Witch and A Lion Among Men are a trilogy known as The Wicked Years

Wicked was developed as a big-budget Broadway musical, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, The Prince of Egypt, etc.), book by Winnie Holzman (My So-Called Life, etc.), and direction by Joe Mantello (Tony Award–winning director for Take Me Out). The original cast recording, released in December 2003, features performances by Kristin Chenoweth, Joel Grey, and Idina Menzel.

His children's novels include The Hamlet Chronicles, a seven-book series, comprised of Seven Spiders Spinning, Six Haunted Hairdos, Five Alien Elves, Four Stupid Cupids, Three Rotten Eggs, A Couple of April Fools, and One Final Firecracker. Though he is best known as a fantasy writer, Maguire has also written picture books, science fiction, and realistic and historic fiction. For the Sunday New York Times Book Review Maguire has published signal reviews of significant fantasies by J. K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, and Maurice Sendak. He has also contributed articles, essays, and fiction in journals such as Ploughshares, Boston Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The Horn Book Magazine, and others.

Maguire has been the recipient of several awards and fellowships. He was artist in residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and has received fellowship residencies at Blue Mountain Center, New York; the Hambidge center, Georgia; The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Vermont. In addition to writing, Maguire is a national figure in children's literature education. He was a professor and associate director of the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons College from 1979 through 1986. Since 1986 he has been codirector and founding board member of Children's Literature New England, Incorporated, a nonprofit that focuses attention on the significance of literature in the lives of children.

Maguire received his Ph.D. in English and American Literature at Tufts University (1990). He has lived abroad in Dublin and London, and now makes his principal home in Massachusetts.

Wicked by Gregory Maguire is also available click here

Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire