Description:
In the vein of Alice Hoffman and Charlie Jane Anders's own All the Birds in the Sky comes a novel full of family, discovery, and witchcraft.
A young witch teaches her mother how to do magic--with very unexpected results--in this relatable, resonant novel about family, identity, and the power of love. Jamie is the average New England academic in-training--she has a strong queer relationship, a handful of generational trauma to work through in therapy, and an esoteric dissertation proposal. But she has one extraordinary secret: Jamie is also a powerful witch. Though Jamie is busy researching a three-hundred-year-old anonymous (possibly magical) book and keeping afloat in the gauntlet of academia, she tries to make time to see her mother Serena, who has closed herself off completely after the death of her beloved wife (Jamie's other mother) Mae. Now, Jamie has been hoping to bring the grieving Serena back to life again by teaching her mother how to also use magic. But she doesn't know the true story of what happened to her mom ten years ago--and casting spells together leads to another terrible loss. It's up to Jamie now to uncover the secrets behind that mysterious 18th century novel. She needs it, both to finish her dissertation as well as to use its hidden message from the past to smooth the magical chaos Serena has wrought in the present....before their future can get any worse.Brief description: Charlie Jane Anders is the author of Lessons in Magic and Disaster. Her other novels include All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night and the young-adult Unstoppable trilogy. She's also the author of the short story collection Even Greater Mistakes, and Never Say You Can't Survive, a book about how to use creative writing to get through hard times. She's won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Lambda Literary, Crawford and Locus Awards. She co-created Escapade, a transgender superhero, for Marvel Comics and wrote her into the long-running New Mutants comic. And she's currently the science fiction and fantasy book reviewer for the Washington Post. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.
Review Quotes:
"Charlie Jane Anders writes the kind of stories that break your heart and expand your mind simultaneously. Charlie Jane is a true gem in the literary world. I am a proud fan." --Janelle Monáe
"Charlie Jane Anders has a near witch-like ability to orchestrate unexpected threads and thoughts into moving together as one enchanted whole. Lessons in Magic and Disaster is a marvel." --Torrey Peters, award-winning author of Detransition, Baby "Lessons in Magic and Disaster will conjure a wickedly brilliant spell on its readers in this tale about witchcraft, queer wisdom, and the pain and powers of womanhood at any age, written by one of our most wildly imaginative writers, Charlie Jane Anders." --Amber Tamblyn, author of Listening in the Dark: Women reclaiming the Power of Intuition"A novel that shimmers with fervent imagination and astute observation, Lessons in Magic and Disaster expertly journeys the uncanny valley between the seduction of witchcraft and the magic of everyday life." --Meredith Talusan, author of Fairest "Lessons in Magic and Disaster is a hymn to queer love, joy, and persistence. The song of resistance and mutual care echoes through this novel just as our trauma and the community we build to survive it echoes through the generations, reminding us: we have always been here; we will always take care of each other. A book for our times--and for all the times before this." ---Nicola Griffith, author of Spear "A breathtaking work of magic, grief, and love. The vulnerable depiction of relationships and challenges within queer and trans communities is heart-wrenching but still reflects hope and optimism throughout." --Library Journal, starred review
"Lessons in Magic and Disaster features...the magic...of human connection, and readers will be richer for the experience." -Shelf Awareness
Praise for Charlie Jane Anders "Charlie Jane Anders always goes a step further." --Jonathan Lethem, bestselling and award-winning author of Motherless Brooklyn "Funny, inspiring, and warm...a book for anyone interested in using art to imagine--and build--better futures." --Bookriot, on Never Say You Can't Survive "A wildly inventive, inventively radical, radically subtle rush of a novel." --Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife, on The City in the Middle of the Night "An intimate portrait of people as much as it is a piece of culturally aware social scifi -- a look at our moment in history through a distorting lens of aliens and spaceships." --NPR on The City in the Middle of the Night "This generation's Le Guin." --Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less, on The City in in Middle of the Night