Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician

By Daniel Wallace

Doubleday, 257 pages

ISBN 0-385-52109-X

Henry Walker, the magician in Jeremiah Mosgrove’s Chinese Circus, has been having problems: he “can’t do a trick to save his life.” Yet before joining the circus, as the shadowy Mr.

From the incomparable Anne Tyler, a wise, gently humorous, and deeply compassionate novel about a schoolteacher, who has been forced to retire at sixty-one, coming to terms with the final phase of his life.Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn’t bother him.