# Read the first page of The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett Read the opening of The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett free, no signup. An assistant uncovers her late magician's secrets. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/the-magicians-assistant-ann-patchett - Genre: Literary fiction - Year: 1997 - ISBN: 9780547548791 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9780547548791&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9780547548791 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9780547548791 ## The opening Parsifal is dead. That is the end of the story. The technician and the nurse rushed in from their glass booth. Where there had been a perfect silence a minute before there was now tremendous activity, the straining sounds of two men unexpectedly thrown into hard work. The technician stepped between Parsifal and Sabine, and she had no choice but to let go of Parsifal's hand. When they counted to three and then lifted Parsifal's body from the metal tongue of the MRI machine and onto the gurney, his head fell back, his mouth snapping open with no reflexes to protect it. Sabine saw all of his beautiful teeth, the two gold crowns on the back molars shining brightly in the overhead fluorescent light. The heavy green sheet that they had given him for warmth got stuck in the guardrail lock. The nurse struggled with it for a second and then threw up his hands, as if to say they didn't have time for this, when in fact they had all the time in the world. Parsifal was dead and would be dead whether help was found in half a minute or in an hour or a day. They rushed him around the corner and down the hall without a word to Sabine. The only sound was the quick squeak of rubber wheels and rubber soles against the linoleum. Sabine stood there, her back against the massive MRI machine, her arms wrapped around her chest, waiting. It was, in a way, the end of Sabine. After a while the neuroradiologist came into the room and told her, in a manner that was respectful and direct, the one thing she already knew: Her husband was dead. He did not pluck at his lab coat or stare at the floor the way so many doctors had done when they had spoken to Parsifal and Sabine about Phan. He told her it had been an aneurism, a thinning in a blood vessel of his brain. He told her it had probably been there for Parsifal's whole life and was not in any way related to his AIDS. Like a patient with advanced lymphoma who is driven off the freeway by a careless teenager changing lanes, the thing that had been scheduled to kill Parsifal had been denied, and Sabine lost the years she was promised he still had. The doctor did not say it was a blessing, but Sabine could almost see the word on his lips. Compared to the illness Parsifal had, this death had been so quick it was nearly kind. "Your husband," the doctor explained, "never suffered." Sabine squeezed the silver dollar Parsifal had given her until she felt the metal edge cut painfully into her palm. Wasn't suffering exactly the thing she had been afraid of? That he would go like Phan, lingering in so many different kinds of pain, his body failing him in unimaginable ways—hadn’t she hoped for something better for Parsifal? If he couldn't have held on to his life, then couldn't he at least have had some ease in his death? That was what had happened. ## Books with a similar feel - [Lies and Sorcery by Elsa Morante & Jenny McPhee](https://uncovered.ink/read/lies-and-sorcery-elsa-morante-and-jenny-mcphee.md) - [The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-mighty-red-louise-erdrich.md) - [F. Scott Fitzgerald by F. Scott Fitzgerald](https://uncovered.ink/read/f-scott-fitzgerald-f-scott-fitzgerald.md) - [Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones](https://uncovered.ink/read/silver-sparrow-tayari-jones.md) - [The Best American Short Stories 2021 by Jesmyn Ward](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-best-american-short-stories-2021-jesmyn-ward.md) - [The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-bonesetters-daughter-amy-tan.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.