Section 1: Pages 1 Through 25 Summary

The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett is a fascinating novel that explores how well people may know someone without knowing their history. After Parsifal's death, Sabine learns the truth about many things in his past that he had lied about. The Magician's Assistant is an interesting novel that investigates the importance of secrets from the past.

Parsifal, Sabine's husband, best friend, and employer has just died on the MRI table at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He suffered a terrible headache which turned out to be an aneurism that caused his death. Sabine replays the day's events from Parsifal waking up and telling her all about a dream he had about Phan, his recently deceased lover, to the headache that arrived around the same time as the dream to the gentleness of the nurse that was attending him...