I know that some people are doing a lot more reading during this pandemic. However, between working in the garden, cooking, cleaning, following three series on Netflix, and conversing daily with friends and family on Skype, my days are pretty full. I only have time for a bit of reading before bedtime. I still have not gone through the supply of books which I had fortuitously purchased just before the pandemic began.
I have now started a new book, "Son of a Witch" by Gregory Maguire.
I have read several of Maguire's books. He writes revisionist, adult versions of well-known children's stories. "Mirror, Mirror" is based on "Snow White". (Imagine the heroine being given the poisoned apple by an envious Lucretia Borgia!) "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" is based on Cinderella. (The title character is a good-hearted person who tries to look after her handicapped sister and her beautiful but troubled stepsister.) Maguire's best known book is "Wicked" which tells the back story of the Wicked Witch of the West from the "Wizard of Oz". It was the inspiration for the popular Broadway musical of the same name. The novel, however, is a much darker tale than the musical. Oz is under the despotic rule of the cruel Wizard, and the "wicked" Witch is a subversive fighting against the dictatorship.
"Son of a Witch" is a continuation of that story after the Witch's death. The main character, Liir, is an adolescent who may or may not be the son who was born from the Witch's affair with Prince Fiyero before his death at the hands of the secret police. The Wizard has departed, but the political situation in Oz remains uncertain and dangerous.
I am only a short way into the novel, but it seems to be another entertaining book by Maguire.
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