The Magician's Girl

W. W. Norton & Company, 1993. Very Good. The three "girls" in this novel meet as roommates at Barnard in the late Th irties. Maud, the daughter of a quiet father and a mother who inexplicably studies the Miss America pageant, becomes a poet, better known after her su icide than before. Liz, the daughter of Communist parents, makes a name for herself by photographing physically unusual peoplegiants, accident victims . The most outwardly conventional of the three is Minna, an academic who le ads a fairly middle-class life until the death of her son snaps her out of the world of the predictable. Minna moves to Iowa, the last place she expec ts to find surprises, and unexpectedly forms an unconventional romantic att achment. Grumbach's well-crafted novel will appeal to readers for whom the passage of time is disconcerting but not frightening.