Veronica [Mass Market Paperback]

Nicholas Christopher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1997

Encountering Veronica, the beautiful and enigmatic daughter of a famous illusionist trapped in time, photographer Leo is drawn into Veronica's search through a magical city where time itself is strangely altered. Reprint. NYT.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Contemporary New York becomes a shadowy hub of interdimensional travel in this wildly imaginative, postmodern tale of magic, mystery, murder and romance. On a snowy streetcorner in lower Manhattan, Leo, a 30-year-old freelance photographer, meets elusive, strangely beautiful Veronica, a magician's daughter and assistant. Lured to see her again, he is swept into a mystically disjointed world. Veronica's father disappeared during an ambitious time-travel demonstration sabotaged by Starwood, a jealous former apprentice who's now a dangerous practitioner of black magic. Veronica and a small group of family and friends have spent the last 10 years preparing to bring her father back from his limbo, and the bewildered Leo will be an important part of their perilous plan. Poet (5*) and novelist (The Soloist, 1986) Christopher's wryly evocative prose is laden with magical symbols and motifs drawn from Tibetan mysticism as well as European traditions. Dramatic imagery and swift pacing draw the reader into a bizarre but alluring mystery. Having researched Manhattan's subterranean water supplies and other invisible components of the city, Christopher creates a new, not quite fantastic map of the Big Apple. This darkly seductive tale maintains a dreamy urgency that keeps the reader intrigued until its poignant, hypnotic conclusion.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

From its opening at the "improbable point where Waverly Place intersects Waverly Place," this phantasmagorical novel leads you on a magical mystery tour of Manhattan. Leo, the hero, is drawn into a family's attempt to reconnect (literally) with their magician father, who has been hijacked to a kind of limbo for the past ten years by a jealous apprentice. If you can suspend belief and accept time travel, arm-severing hoods, stairways that disappear as you walk down them, and twins with mirror-symmetrical eyes (one who looks 30, the other, 80), you will enjoy this ride. Christopher, who also writes short stories and poetry (Five Degrees and Other Poems, Penguin 1995), builds his world?rather, worlds?with a wealth of detail. Sometimes the characterization is weak, but this is not a tale of Sturm und Drang?it is a novel of incidents and magic. "A good lock when it's opened should sound like a pair of stones clicking underwater," the title character says early in this novel. Indeed, Christopher has unlocked a rich fantasy world that, despite being dangerous, is extremely enticing. Insert the key, strike the stones, read this book. Recommended for all fiction collections.?Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P. L., Bloomington, Ind.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 386 pages
• Publisher: Avon Books (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380729180
• ISBN-13: 978-0380729180
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 6.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,311,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "... the uncanny is made to seem commonplace ..., April 26, 2001

By 

Wayne Scott "wayne-san" (Atlantic Beach, Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Veronica (Paperback)

... and the commonplace unfathomable" ~~ The New Yorker.

Couldn't have said it better. This is one of those books that I could not put down. "gmesa" (another reviewer) commented that it left them "feeling oddly cold despite the wonder". I can easily understand that reaction. Read on ...

Every chapter in this book left me feeling as though I was remembering a dream, (which can leave one feeling oddly detached, as though standing outside of one's self and watching) and left me trying to recall all the details and understand the meaning of what it was I had just seen. I suppose that's what happens when you get a novel by a poet. I like it. Alot.

This is one of those books where you are quite happy to suspend disbelief as you find yourself at the unlikely spot in Manhattan "... where Waverly Place intersects Waverly Place ..." and go along for the ride.

If you're so inclined, there is an extensive bibliography that makes for some very "curious" late night reading, if you can find all of the titles. Under the general heading of "Wayne-san's Trivia", the term Feng Shui entered my vocabulary when I read this book. I don't recall what, if any, Feng Shui title is in the bibliography, but a must-have title is "Feng-Shui: The Ancient Wisdom of Harmonious Living for Modern Times" by Eva Wong. (ISBN: 1570621004). You'll find no author with better credentials in the art (but if you do, e-mail me), and her accounts of apprenticing to her uncle will give you some insight that there is more to Feng Shui then deciding where to put the sofa. Pay attention to "Veronica", and you'll understand why I mention this ...

I've read, re-read, and given this as a gift. That's the best recommendation I can give any book. Enjoy.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just a wonderful, wonderful book!, January 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Veronica (Mass Market Paperback)

This is, without a doubt, one of my very favorite books ever. I have read and reread it several times. You do have to "suspend disbelief" and just go with it. This is an incredibly beautifully-written story with mystery, romance, intrigue, and magic all interwoven into a magnificent tapestry that seems to unfold into infinity. I didn't want this story to end! It made me want to go find where Waverly Place intersects Waverly Place some snowy night and see if something magical happens.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jazz and Magic in 80's Manhattan, May 31, 2000

By 

Craig L. Gidney "ethereallad" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Veronica (Paperback)

Leo is photographer in the SoHo district of New York City. One day in the middle of winter, he runs into an extraordinary and unusual woman with one green eye, the other blue. Veronica subtly and knowingly draws him into her life. At first, things seem strange, but only in an arty, jaded NYCer kind of way. But gradually, Veronica draws Leo into her complex, and mysterious mission. Leo begins to see the city in a surrealistic way. Hidden passages, strange dreams, odd coincidences abound whenever his new lover Veronica is around. It's only a matter of time before things nosedive into the supernatural. For Veronica is the daughter of a magician who was cast into the past by a rival magican; it is only by an arcane, magical ritual, involving Leo that she can rescue her father. Christopher mixes eclectic strains of arcana -- from the alchemy of John Dee to the Feng Shui arrangements of Chinese customs, plus time travel, and imbues them with the ambiance of a film-noir movie. When the plot takes off, it is relentless. Christopher's writing is lovely, and his characters are quirky and offbeat. Imagine "The Maltese Falcon" co-directed by Terry Gilliam, Jim Jarmusch, and Derek Jarman, with a soundtrack by Charles Mingus, and sets by Salvador Dali, and you have this delightfully strange novel.