Jilly Farina is fourteen, but so small that she
wears younger kids' clothes. Her father is drunk on
the day of the Barnstable County Fair, so she goes
by herself, and by that night her life has been
transformed. When she walks into a tent to see
Millroy the Magician, his eyes lighten from brown to
green and fasten upon her. He performs miracles in
front of Jilly's spellbound eyes and tells her he
wants to eat her. He spirits her into his trailer,
and fer the first time in her forlorn young life,
Jilly feels safe. He tells her that he has command
over nine bodily functions, that he will train her
to be his assistant, and that he will give her a
sequined costume.
But this is only the beginning. Millroy is a man
like no other, a magician not simply of mere
conjuring, but of true baffling magic. He is a
healer too, a vegetarian and health fanatic with a
mission to change the eating habits of his beloved
United States. In search of the perfect platform, he
finds it in television as an evangelical preacher,
touting hygiene and the simple pure foods mentioned
in the Bible. From fairground magician to cult
leader, Millroy is unstoppable.
In his portrait of a man who is part genius, part
eccentric, and part miracle worker, and of is
complex and uneasy relationship with young Jilly,
Paul Theroux has created a remarkable parable of
America today. A work of breathtaking imagination
and resonance, Millroy the Magician displays the
author at the height of his fictional powers, and in
Jilly and Millroy he has created two truly
unforgettable characters. |
