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  • Published: 15 October 2008
  • ISBN: 9780307279118
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $32.99

Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician



A whimsical and heartbreaking tale of the thin line between fantasy and reality in the South of the mid-twentieth-century from the acclaimed author of Big Fish. FIRST TIME IN PAPERBACK.

Henry Walker was once a world-class magician, performing to sold-out shows in New York. But now he has been reduced to joining Musgrove's Chinese Circus (which at no point in its tour of the deep South has ever included a single Chinese person) as the shambling Negro Magician, whose dark black skin and electric green eyes bewitch most audiences. But one balmy Mississippi night in 1954, Henry disappears in the company of three rowdy white teens and is never seen again. Wallace pieces together Henry's incredible vagabond life – from a deal with a bone-white devil known only as Mr. Sebastian, to the heartrending loss of his sister Hannah – and creates an enchanting tale of love, loss, identity, and the limitation of magic.

  • Published: 15 October 2008
  • ISBN: 9780307279118
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $32.99

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Praise for Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician

"Delightful. . .a quirky off-center confection. . . . a story of the fabulous, one that freely mixes the real and the desired in equal parts."--The Denver Post

"[Wallace] writes with a heartbreaking kind of razzle-dazzle."--USA Today