Mockingbird [Hardcover]

Sean Stewart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1998

Sean Stewart's distinctive prose has been praised as "emotionally intense" by the New York Times. Now in Mockingbird, he combines haunting simplicity with eloquence in a tale of two sisters bound by their mother's gift--a legacy of magic... When Toni Beauchamp's mother died, she and her sister Candy thought it meant a new beginning, a life free of magic. But Elena Beauchamp had one last gift for her daughter --a sip from the Mockingbird Cordial. And the moment Toni held the drink to her lips, her life would never be the same...

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There was no question that Toni Beauchamp's mother, Elena, could work magic. She used magic the way other people use credit cards, ringing up huge bills to get the things she wanted. But the debts had to be paid off sooner or later, and in this case payment meant letting one of the six lesser gods known as Riders take possession of her body. When Elena died, Toni and her sister Candy thought the magic died with her. But their mother left them a gift that couldn't be refused, and now Toni finds herself endowed with the same powers she once despised in her mother. And if that wasn't enough, her mother also left behind emotional, financial, and familial disasters that she and Candy must find some way to cope with. --Craig E. Engler

From Publishers Weekly

Fusing prophecy, pregnancy and voodoo, Stewart (The Night Watch) delivers a fanciful magic realist tale set in modern-day Houston. After her mother dies, Antoinette ("Toni") Beauchamp receives a "gift she can't refuse": visitations from her mother's personal gods. These gods, or riders, are given access to Toni when her sister, Candy, following instructions left by their mother, feeds Toni a doctored drink. The beverage makes Toni receptive to the gods, who ride around inside her head and use her body to further their own ends. Sickened by this invasion and saddened by the loss of her mother, Toni decides to have a child. The narrative follows the progress of Toni's pregnancy and her struggles to keep the riders in check. Toni's rambling first-person narrative is vivacious and entertaining. The characterizations of Toni, Candy, their beaus and their father shine with humor and a Southern sauciness. Laced throughout are stories about the riders that illuminate their attributes and add an element of dark whimsy to the narrative. This isn't Stewart's most tightly focused novel, but his poignant take on voodoo among middle-class women makes for delicious fun.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 278 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover; 1st edition (August 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441005470
• ISBN-13: 978-0441005475
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,365,215 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sean Stewart is the author of the innovative I Love Bees and Beast search operas, two short stories, and seven previous novels: Galveston, Mockingbird, The Night Watch, Clouds End, Resurrection Man, Nobody's Son, and Passion Play. His novels have received the Aurora, Arthur Ellis, Sunburst, Canadian Library, and World Fantasy awards. He presently writes lots of things that have Non Disclosure Agreements attached so he cannot talk about them. Stewart is tall, energetic, uses big words easily, coaches his daughter's soccer team, is a great reader, has taught writing, and lives in Davis, CA, with his wife and two daughters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The dysfunction dance, November 16, 2000

By 

Minsma (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mockingbird: A Novel (Paperback)

If you grew up in a dysfunctional family--and have developed a gallows humor about it--you should find something to relate to in this novel. Even if you did manage to escape the dysfunction dance while growing up, Stewart's characters are so true to life and the magic is woven through the story in such an easygoing and natural way that the novel is very entertaining--and believable.

Toni Beauchamp lives in present day Houston and has always been the responsible one in her family, taking care of everyone, and cleaning up the family's dirty laundry when her troubled mother is periodically possessed by one of the voodoo gods who inhabit the household. But when Momma dies, Toni's responsibility takes on new, unwelcome and magical dimensions. It couldn't come at a worse time, as Toni has just gotten pregnant. She is forced to confront a range of emotions and a whole new set of experiences.

Most of the major characters in this novel are women and Sean Stewart did not hit a false note, in my opinion, in the portrayal of these very different feminine psyches. Stewart manages to make you laugh at the wreckage without downplaying the pain, to lament without getting maudlin, and--without lapsing into melodrama--portrays the razor's edge between love and hate which exists in many families. Strangely enough, this novel is a kind of loving tribute of the messiness of families, showing how surviving the source of our weakness and terrible pain is also the source of our individuality and our ultimate strength. It is an admirable tightrope walk, sometimes profound, sometimes laughable, very human--and fun.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A cross between 100 Yrs of Solitude and Fried Green Tomatoes, July 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Mockingbird (Hardcover)

Not the fantasy/SF Sean Stewart's fans might expect, but a kind of funny southern gothic, with a little magic realism thrown in for good measure. I've read all Stewart's books, but this one is far and away the best - and includes the most hysterical, and accurate description of morning-sickness I've ever read. (All I'll say it that it involves a revolving restaurant, a Cobb salad, and a voodoo curse.) If you've not yet discovered Stewart, here's the place to start. And if you already know his work, get ready to enjoy.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There are some gifts which may not be refused, August 8, 2007

By 

Richard Stoehr "Idle Rich" (Bremerton, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mockingbird (Paperback)

Once in a while, I reach a point in a book when I have to stop and realize "Oh, this is going to be GOOD." Sometimes that is early on, sometimes it is not until halfway through. Some books make that promise but don't deliver, and others never even make the promise in the first place. Sean Stewart's "Mockingbird" not only has that moment, but it delivers on it brilliantly.

It happens on page three, with the description of Geronimo, the zombie frog.

What seems at first like something clever, funny, almost cute in its concept (the idea of a zombie frog) becomes something far more disturbing and real when examined more closely. This simple event, something that happens fairly early in Toni Beauchamp's life, sets the stage for the story and the tone for the rest of the novel. It was my "Oh, this is going to be good" moment...and oh, it was.

As the story begins, Toni Beauchamp's mother dies, and she is left to figure out what to do with her debt, both spiritual and financial, as well as what to do with her inheritance -- her mother's gift for magic. Thing is, she doesn't want that gift. Her mother, a famous (in some circles) voodoo practitioner, has kept magic a part of her life and her daughters' lives, and Toni wants to be done with it. She finds, however, that she doesn't have much choice, and her family's gift has a way of creeping back into her life again and again.

Sean Stewart is at his best when he dances along the edge of the fantastic, but he always manages to keep his feet in the real world as well. Just as he did in the excellent "Perfect Circle," his story in "Mockingbird" treats magic and mysticism as only a part of his characters' lives, and not even the most significant part. His characters still have jobs, they still have friends, families, and all the little details that make up all of our lives -- and as if that didn't make things complicated enough, they have to add magic into the mix as well. In "Mockingbird," as in the best of Stewart's stories, a real-world sensibility is what grounds the story, even when the story is about magic. It is a difficult feat to pull off, but I have never seen anyone do it better than Stewart does.

When you can tell a story about voodoo, family, pregnancy, dating, possession, and even have a zombie frog in there, and make it all work together, you know you've got something good. "Mockingbird" is a novel that gets all of it right, and you'll know it right from somewhere on page three.