Books
The life of this scribe is a real page-turner
New novel about Thomas Mann brimming with entertaining history
‘The Magician’
By Colm Toibin
c.2020, Scribner
$28/512 pages
If you told me that the most exciting book you’d read recently was a novel about the life of a writer, I’d think you were nuts.
Especially if the author spent hours, daily, closeted in his study writing, was often remote from his children and, frequently, at least publicly, as stuffy as a pompous university professor. Yet, reading “The Magician,” a new novel by acclaimed gay writer Colm Toibin, has made me eat those words.
In “The Magician,” a fictional bio of the renowned 20th century novelist Thomas Mann, Toibin has done what few have been able to do: He’s turned the life of a scribe into a page-turner.
In my youth, I carried “The Magic Mountain,” Mann’s voluminous 1924 novel, into cafes. I never made it all the way through the novel’s saga of Hans Castorp’s stay in a sanitarium for patients seeking treatment for tuberculosis.
Though different in style, the novel was like James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” You wanted to be seen with it, even if you didn’t get it.
Much of Mann’s work from his retelling of the biblical story of Joseph and his brothers to Dr. Faustus, his reshaping of the Faust legend in the life of a fictional composer, seems not only fraught with symbolism – but too long.
Yet, “Buddenbrooks,” Mann’s autobiographical novel about reversal of fortune of a German merchant family, published when Mann was just 26, is an engrossing read.
When Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929, the Prize citation called “Buddenbrooks,” “one of the classic works of contemporary literature.”
“Death in Venice,” Mann’s 1912 novella has caused generations of queers to prick up their ears. Particularly, back in the day, when few of us were out in life or in fiction.
“Death in Venice” is the story of the writer Gustav Von Aschenbach who’s attracted to a beautiful boy named Tadzio. It’s not an out and proud tale. Aschenbach’s lust for the youth gets entangled with illness. Yet, homoeroticism permeates the novella.
Toibin’s take on Mann’s life is fictional. But, in writing “The Magician,” he spent years researching Mann’s journals and biographies of Mann.
On the surface, Mann who was born in Lubeck, Germany in 1875 and died in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1955, led a heteronormative, conventional life.
He and his wife Katia were happily married for decades. Katia, who was bright and charming, was one of the first women of her generation to study at a university. The couple had six children.
After writing in the morning, having lunch, taking a walk, eating dinner with his family – Mann would go to an opera or a concert.
If you’re queer, you know there’s often more than meets the eye. in “The Magician,” Toibin uses his fab writerly wiles to reveal what’s behind the curtain.
Like Aschenbach in “Death in Venice,” Mann, from his youth, was attracted to boys and men.
Though closeted in public, he wrote about his same-sex attractions in his diaries.
From the get-go, Thomas and Katia Mann appear to have reached a tacit understanding of Thomas’s sexuality.
When he first met Katia, Mann was attracted by her boyish qualities. Mann “imagined Katia naked, her white skin, her full lips, her small breasts, her strong legs,” Toibin writes.
Katia understood Mann’s sexuality. In some ways, it was helpful to her. It meant, Katia said, that she didn’t have to worry about Mann going after another woman.
On his part, Mann made a tacit commitment to Katia. “Thomas would do nothing to put their domestic happiness in jeopardy,” Toibin writes.
The Manns fled from Munich to Switzerland when the Nazis came to power. (Katia was Jewish.)
When they were in exile, Mann was terrified that the Nazis would find the revelations about his same-sex attractions in his diaries.
If the Nazis made his sexuality public, it would be known “who he was and what he dreams about,” Toibin writes.
The Manns weather love affairs (some of his children were queer), suicides of family members and exile.
The book becomes as suspenseful as a Hitchcock thriller as they struggle to find a new home after the Nazis devastate their native country.
“The Magician” is brimming with entertaining soap opera, campy bons mots and riveting history.
Though it’s 500-plus pages, you won’t be able to put it down.
Books
Exploring Renée Richards’s life through lens of a trans author
Surprises await in new book about pioneering tennis star
‘Finding Renée Richards’
By Julie Kliegman
c.2026, HarperOne
$28.99/272 pages
Come on in, the water’s fine.
Wade into it up to your ankles, your calves, your waist, you’ll be OK. You’ll adjust to the waves that swirl around you so come on, dive in, it’s all good. As in the new book “Finding Renée Richards” by Julie Kliegman, that goes for swimming, and for controversy.
Assigned to do a story on books written by trans tennis great Renée Richards, Julie Kleigman read the books and became “transfixed by a woman who had fought so hard to simply live as who she had long known she was….”. Their editor had figured that, as a nonbinary and trans individual, Kleigman would have “something incisive to say…” in an article. Instead, once they met and began interviewing Richards, Kliegman was left frustrated.
Born in the late summer of 1934, Richard Henry Raskind seemed to have arrived with a tennis racket in his hand. His mother was a psychiatrist; his father was an orthopedic surgeon who hoped “Dick” would follow his footsteps but Raskind was drawn instead to ophthalmology and tennis. He was also irresistibly drawn to wearing women’s clothing.
His sister knew of this pull and Raskind eventually came out to both parents, but few others on the tennis circuit were aware. When Raskind visited his hometown of New York City, however, he enjoyed furtively going out in women’s clothing but he also tried to squash the desire; in the meantime, he fell in love, married, fathered a son, and eventually learned that it was possible to become the woman he knew he really was.
To continue playing tennis professionally was a bonus.
And right there were the disagreements Kleigman had with Richards.
Richards, “To this day… [makes] a point of describing herself as a woman, period,” says Kleigman, but she firmly acknowledged Richard, almost as a separate individual, insisting that Kleigman use “him/his” pronouns when describing her earlier life.
And as for tennis and trans women’s participation in the sport, Richards had something even more frustrating to say.
Take that as a fair warning: you might be equally surprised at what author Julie Kliegman uncovered in “Finding Renée Richards,” and you may be truly gobsmacked by reading opinions from other women about the topic of trans women in sports.
That’s the main, huge point of interest in this fascinating book; the other is Richards’s life as seen through the lens of a trans individual. Kleigman’s wrestling with the 90-year-old Richards’ firmly dug-in heels is, in itself, worth your time as a study of highly varying viewpoints. That Kleigman and Richards have both lived at least a part of trans history is somewhat of a key to understanding how this book unfolds, as Kleigman offers up Richards’s tale. Readers who are able to read between the lines will be riveted.
If you’re a sports fan and you have opinions, you must read this book – and that goes double if it’s tennis you love. Also check out “Finding Renée Richards” if you just want a raucously good and very fine read.
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Books
Bros + romance + fantasy = ‘Bromantasy.’
New book a romp full of humor, dragons, kings, and adventure
‘Bromantasy’
By Maire Roche
c.2026, G.P. Putnam’s Sons
$20/339 pages
“Danger” just happens to be your middle name.
Any fray, any tussle, anytime anybody needs help, they count on you to step in and save the day. You’re brave, smart and strategic, kind to old people, children, and small animals and, as in the new book “Bromantasy” by Maire Roche, dragons.
Of all the things there were to do – preserving food, keeping house for himself and his best friend Morningthall “Mo” Elmthorn, advanced skincare, and drinking at the local tavern down the road – the one thing Juniper O’Reilly couldn’t resist was a good brawl. It happened so often that Juniper honestly looked forward to it, though Mo wasn’t a fan.
Mo was more grown-up, calm, thoughtful, able, and Juniper loved him for it. He loved Mo, in fact, since they were little boys. He loved Mo in ways that they didn’t talk about, so they kept a wall between their bedrooms in their cottage.
Except for that one time.
They didn’t talk about that, either.
Instead, as they did often, on a warm fall night, Juniper and Mo went to the tavern, where mead was served and they could learn about the king’s weekly quests. There, Juniper could also find a good brawl, which is how he and Mo accidentally got into trouble: Juniper trounced one of the king’s men and was forced into a quest.
He didn’t want to fight dragons and he felt bad that Mo had been dragged along. He felt even worse leaving their farm, sleeping on the ground, wearing the same clothes every day, and not having enough skincare product along. A campfire added to the problem. A roving, lying prince, also in search of dragons, didn’t help. And though a quest was no place for a child, Juniper and Mo found a frightened little girl they had no choice but to protect.
A child with strange eyes, sharp teeth, and fire on her breath.
“And just like that, Juniper and Mo had a dragon.”
Bros + romance + fantasy = “Bromantasy.” It also could equal one of two other things: a romp full of humor, dragons, kings, princes, and adventure.
Or it could equal a whole lot of eye-rolling.
It’s a fact that this book is funny, in the way that a 1980s high school comedy movie is funny – meaning that it’s dippy, giddy, and very caricaturish but you’ll laugh quite often. The story contains everything you want in a fantasy romance (a “romantasy”), including human-like alternate species, a life-changing journey, and plenty of nudge-nudge-wink skirting around the attraction the two main characters have for one another. It’s a decent story, convoluted in just the right way. Purely, it’s an escape.
So why wouldn’t you want to read it? See above, and depending on your favorite reading genre. High-brow literature, this ain’t.
For the right reader, “Bromantasy” is a decent-enough vacation read, something not too taxing or hard on the brain. It’s for novel lovers, dragon hunters, king’s questers, princes, and romantics. For everyone else, this tale is just middling.
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Books
Something’s off about Dad. When is it time to step in?
‘When Memory Fades’ can help when families face dementia
‘When Memory Fades’
By Nathaniel Chin, MD
c.2026, St. Martin’s Essentials
$30/422 pages
Mom called you in a panic the other day.
She’d lost her keys and by the time you arrived to help, she’d found them. In the refrigerator.
These kinds of things keep happening, not often but often enough, and you don’t know quite what to worry about. But in the new book “When Memory Fades” by Nathaniel Chin, MD, you’ll learn about the journey ahead, for both of you.
You can’t remember why you walked into a room. You got lost last week, going to the bank. Popular wisdom says that things like that are normal as we age, but Chin says that’s not true – although the answer may not be a worst-case scenario, either. Yes, memory problems could just be signs of stress, dehydration, or lack of sleep – or is it time to see a doctor?
Chin says maybe, yes.
He was working his way through medical residency when his father, a geriatrician in Madison, Wisc., was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Chin, now a geriatrician, was blindsided, but that diagnosis also changed his life.
Here, he writes about the brain, and how Alzheimer’s and dementia are diagnosed, explaining that dementia has many faces and, depending on a doctor’s evaluation, memory problems might be slowed or improved. He shares his father’s illness with readers, but he also writes about his mother, a steadfast, steady caretaker.
Her story reminds reader-guardians to care for themselves, too.
Know how to talk the talk, so that you can have “a more productive” conversation with your doctor. Understand that there’s nothing “normal” about dementia or Alzheimer’s. Know the statistics – African Americans are affected with dementia twice as much as whites – and know how to lower your risks. Learn here what questions to ask, how to break the news to everyone, and any legal matters that will be important soon. And know how to tend to you.
Says Chin, “The best action you can take is to educate yourself… The more you understand, the better equipped you are to make sound judgments.”
Something’s off about Dad, just a lot of little things that don’t add up. When is it time to step in? “When Memory Fades” can help you decide.
Wise, wide-spread, comprehensive, and compassionately helpful, this is a book you can read and then take it to the doctor with your loved one. It’s a book that makes sense when nothing else does, and its biggest feature is that it smoothly transitions from easy-to-grasp science and charts, to gentle coaching for caregivers. Author Nathaniel Chin, MD writes with storytelling, humility, grace, and experience from both sides of the Alzheimer’s/dementia issue, and his words are reassuring but also urgent. Learn, but don’t wait, he says. Know how to safeguard yourself. See your doctor, and don’t fear testing. Watch for signs of depression. And never, ever stop asking for help.
Read those last seven words, and find “When Memory Fades” now. It’s a book to have on your shelf, whether you’re 45 or 95 because, as you’ll see, dementia happens and knowledge is key.
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Exploring Renée Richards’s life through lens of a trans author
