A Kind of Magic Author:Edna Ferber As dynamic today as when she first began observing the American scene, Edna Ferber here continues her own story from 1939, the point at which A PECULIAR TREASURE left off, to 1963. A KIND OF MAGIC radiates the wit, human understanding, and occassional biting commetary that have been the Ferber trademark since she began as a $3-a-week reporter o... more »n the Appleton Crescent.
Admittedly stage-struck, the author offers intimate, compelling glimpses of such personalities as George S Kaufman, Richard Rodgers, Alfred Lunt, Mike Todd, and James Dean. But, Edna Ferbers other love has always been writing, and she relates with charm and exhuberance her many creative battles royal.
In a greater sense, A Kind of Magic is a chronicle of our time as seen through the eyes of a highly skilled and sensitive observer. During the war, "Captain" Ferber had the uncanny knack, given to only a few correspondents, of being consistently where the news was breaking. She was in Washington the day President Roosevelt died; in London when the Eigth Air Force launched its first long-range daylight raids; at Buchenwald and Nordhausen shortly after their liberation; and -- more happily -- in Paris on V.E. Day and in New York on V.J. Day. In these pages she recaptures the black-and-white insanity of that war and all wars, as well as the stifling, post-war complacency which gripped America and holds it still.
Though the reader may be taken aback by Edna Ferber's emphatic opinions on such wide-ranging topics as Manhattan, Germany, Isreal, and the Superiority of Women, he cannot fail to admire in her the same qualities that distinguish her heroines -- toughness, initiative, perception, and integrity -- qualities which have caused millions of readers to regard Ms. Ferber's characters as real people.
Ms. Ferber has covered this land from East (Saratoga Trunk and American Beauty) to Midwest (So Big and Come and Get It), to South (Show Boat), to Southwest (Cimarron and Giant), to Northwest (Great Son), and the Far North (Ice Palace). In every setting, in fiction and non-fiction, Edna Ferber's writing shows a zest for living unmistakably her own. No other American writer has sounded the conscience of the country so thoroughly nor, the reader will realize, has loved it so well.« less