From Publishers Weekly
The baggy latest from Theroux ( Chicago Loop ) is both satire and love story, by turns bilious, brutal, gentle and grotesque. Millroy is indeed a magician, but one whose ambitions reach far beyond the crowd-pleasing tricks he performs in the tatty fairground tent where we first meet him. He intends to conjure up fame, fortune and a new identity somewhere between Jimmy Swaggart and the Frugal Gourmet as he promotes a new digestive religion for middle America based on healthy, biblically inspired and, above all, fiber-filled eating. Like John Harvey Kellogg in T. Coraghessan Boyle's recent The Road to Wellville , Millroy plans a literal purging of America, and in a barnstorming transcontinental roadshow, related by his accomplice and amanuensis, teenage runaway Jilly Farina, Millroy sets about spreading the word to the constipated faithful. In his phantasmagoria, Theroux gives us America as carnival with the prayer meetings, the sideshow and the superstar. By the end, ironically, Millroy suffers from a surfeit: unlike the magician, Theroux rejects restraint of any kind, and his satire of America's culture of consumption rambles beyond most readers' appetites. But even if the novel is overstuffed, its larger-than-life hero is a notable new recruit to Theroux's growing gallery of memorable obsessives . Author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
YA-A strange, often funny, and always provocative story about a country-fair magician who becomes a cult leader. During an awe-inspiring performance, Millroy the Magician locks eyes with skinny 14-year-old Jilly Farina (the narrator) and asks her to stay with him. Jilly is very innocent and for the first time in her forlorn little life she feels safe and secure in his Airstream trailer on the Barnstable campgrounds. Millroy claims that his formidable power comes from his command over nine bodily functions and because he only eats vegetarian foods mentioned in the Bible. Fueled by Jilly's constancy, he seeks to spread his message first through children's television (where he attracts an enormous following) and then through a chain of restaurants (where he attracts the attention of the IRS and other government agencies and organized religious groups). Through all of this, Jilly questions her uneasy relationship with a man who is quite possibly more than human but still full of flaws. This controversial novel full of religion, magic, and wisdom will appeal to thoughtful older teens.
Susan R. Farber, Chappaqua Public Library, NYCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
