The Magicians

J.B. Priestley's mid-1950s novel makes a plea for living a deeper, more fulfilling life, but it resorts to some hocus-pocus to make the point. The magicians of the title are normal-looking men but turn out to be vaguely supernatural. Their instruction to the protagonist, a middle-aged man who is successful but not happy, revolves around the concept of "tick tock" versus "time alive." The former is how most of us live, from moment to moment, with the past relegated to unimportance. "Time alive" is a richer experience in which a person's past and present form a continuous spiral, or loop — in any case, it's not linear. The main character experiences this "time alive" through a kind of reverse hypnosis, meaning he's not being put under but awakened to the wholeness of experience. If it all seems a bit flaky, Priestley is able to carry it off believably. The novel also includes some sharp social criticism of mass media and entertainment, as well as the perils of dulling the mind with antidepressants, that remain relevant to this day.

A Death in the Family

James Agee's novel is a good example of how art can be produced when the artist strives for maximum sincerity. The temptation to break ground in form and content can lead writers astray, but Agee finds his subject in the most commonplace and universal event, a death in the family. Particularly effective is the scene in which the child listens at a closed door to his mother, his great aunt, and a priest discussing the death of the boy's father. Although he cannot make out the words through the door, he is able to evaluate what is happening by their tones. This passage, which combines realism and insightfulness, is one of many effective scenes in this fine novel.

The Disenchanted

The main attraction of Budd Schulberg's The Disenchanted is the potboiler-type slow-motion train wreck that is the main character's life. Modeled on Scott Fitzgerald, Manley Halliday is pretty much doomed from the first sip of champagne on an airplane trip from Los Angeles to New York. But the gradual disintegration is handled skillfully, producing in the reader a mounting sense of dread. If it did nothing else, the novel would be worthwhile for that, but Schulberg also interweaves flashback sections that show the writer at the height of his fame in the Twenties. The sad story is made even sadder by the fact that an incomplete manuscript left behind shows not only that Halliday had not lost his touch, but that he was onto something better than ever.

The Zebra-Striped Hearse

I knew there would be great dialogue when I started this Ross Macdonald novel, but having not read any of the Lew Archer books in many years I was not prepared for the great descriptive and allusive writing as well. For example: "The striped hearse was standing empty among other cars off the highway above Zuma. I parked behind it and went down to the beach to search for its owner. Bonfires were scattered along the shore, like the bivouacs of nomad tribes or nuclear war survivors. The tide was high and the breakers loomed up marbled black and fell white out of oceanic darkness." The case is a tangled one unpacked with Archer's famous doggedness and care.

The Judge's House

For reasons not explained, Maigret has been exiled to the provinces, giving Simenon the chance to explore the social dynamics of a small fishing village where a murder has occurred. As usual, the author reveals the motivations and shortcomings of the human animal with unerring skill.