Here We Are

February 1, 2020
A sleight-of-hand novel about a seaside British revue in the late 1950s, before everything changed. Master novelist Swift (Last Orders, 1996, etc.) invites readers to see parallels between the tricks he is pulling and the magic act that is the ostensible subject of his novel. Or is it? As Swift writes of a magician and the assistant to whom he is betrothed, "The act had become a fluid phenomenon, yet full of a thrilling tension. You never knew what might happen next. This in itself became part of the attraction." And so it is with this slight but charming novel, which opens with two men and a woman, introducing a triangle. The woman is Evie ("first of women"), and the names of the two men keep shifting, as the novel suggests that identities tend to do. One is Jack, the emcee of the show, a song-and-dance man in charge of the pacing of the production. The other is magician Ronnie, who becomes "the Great Pablo" at Jack's behest. Though the novel seems to introduce Jack as the protagonist, it is Ronnie's backstory that dominates. Where Jack and Evie had both been pushed toward the stage by showbiz mothers, "Ronnie Deane was a different kettle of fish and as Evie, but only with some persistence, would find out, had had a different introduction to the world of entertainment, and a different kind of mother." Two of them, in fact, or maybe two different childhoods, as he had been sent to safety during the World War II bombings by an impoverished mother to a more privileged home in the countryside. There, Ronnie became a different boy, with a different destiny, one that would lead him first to Jack and then, at Jack's behest, to Evie. The bare bones of the plot don't have much more flesh on them, but the hocus pocus of identity and destiny, how we become who we are and make the choices we do, offers plenty of surprise as well as revelation.

Starred review from February 17, 2020
Saturated with images and metaphors that recur like melodies, this jewel of a novel by Booker-winner Swift (Last Orders) conjures the shared past of a group of entertainers who performed together in 1959. In seaside Brighton, England, 28-year-old showman Jack Robinson hires his old army buddy, the magician Ronnie Deane, to be part of his variety show. The enigmatic magician in turn hires the lovely Evie to jazz up his act, and soon puts an engagement ring on her finger. Jack’s show becomes a success, with Ronnie and Evie’s set as “the Great Pablo and Eve” the major attraction, though from the beginning, Swift hints that there will be no happy ending for the “lopsided trio.” In Swift’s trademark fashion, his close-third narration intertwines each character’s perspective to construct the tragic story in seamless transitions, gradually revealing past transgressions and sources of pain as time bends back on itself. A now elderly Evie mostly looks on from the present, while chapters on Ronnie deepen Swift’s bittersweet tone by following Ronnie’s journey as a boy sent during the London Blitz in WWII to live with a beloved surrogate mother and father, from whom he learns his craft. Swift’s brief, magical tale demonstrates one more brilliant example of his talent for pulling universal themes out of the hats of ordinary lives.

Starred review from February 1, 2020
"Life is unfair," Swift keeps reminding us in this melancholy, deeply moving tale of three showpeople in postwar Britain?Ronnie, a magician; Evie, his assistant and fianc�e; and Jack, the master of ceremonies for a variety show headlined by Ronnie and Evie on Brighton Pier in the summer of 1959. In the crisp, eloquently understated prose that has been a hallmark of Swift's award-winning career, he traces the lives of the trio, both during that pivotal summer and earlier, focusing on Ronnie's wartime experience, when he was sent to the country by his charwoman mother to avoid the Blitz. For Ronnie, the enforced exile was a kind of pastoral idyll, living with a middle-class couple and learning magic from a father figure who, unlike his real father, was present and attentive. Performing magic, however, only serves to emphasize the guiding principle of his life?keeping secrets, the secrets of the illusions he creates on stage, but also the secrets of his inner life. That habit of mind, shared in different ways by both Evie and Jack, drives the dynamic of their interlocked but emotionally hidden three-way relationship, leading to the shocking last act of their summer in Brighton. The title is deeply ironic, in that none of the three ever knows for sure where they are?with themselves or with one another?but Swift makes sure we know: three performers who could never quite leave their secrets behind.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2019

In summer 1959, friends Jack, Ronnie, and Evie are performing in a variety show in Brighton, England, as Jack Robinson the Compere Comedian, plus the magic act the Great Pablo and Eve. But as the fall winds blow, Evie's engagement to Ronnie ends and one of the three vanishes. With backstory rooted in World War II. From Booker Prize winner Swift.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.