The Magician

The Magician (2021) is a biographical novel by Colm Tóibín that examines the life of Nobel Prize-winning German author Thomas Mann. Sweeping in scope, the novel is told through intimate, reflective episodes exploring Mann’s artistic genius, his relationship with his sexuality, and his fraught navigation of exile during the rise of Nazism. The novel, which focuses on Mann’s relationship with his wife (Katia), his six children, and his siblings, examines themes related to complex family dynamics and the tensions between public acclaim and private turmoil.

Tóibín is an acclaimed Irish novelist, playwright, and poet. He has written more than 10 novels. The Master, his fictionalized biography of writer Henry James, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2006 and won the International Dublin Literary Award. The Magician won the Folio Prize (now the Writers’ Prize) in 2022.

This guide refers to the Viking Books, Penguin 2021 eBook edition.

Content Warning: The novel and guide discuss death by suicide, antisemitism, brutality, torture, murder, gay sexual orientation, inappropriate attraction to children, incest-adjacent themes, emotional abuse, substance abuse, and mental health conditions.

Plot Summary

Fifteen-year-old Thomas lives in Lübeck with his senator father, Johann Heinrich Mann; his mother, Julia; and his siblings, Heinrich, Carla, Lula, and Viktor. Wealthy and well-respected, the Mann family is a force in their town, though Julia’s free-spiritedness raises eyebrows. Heinrich, Thomas’s older brother, has literary ambitions, and Thomas believes that he’ll inherit his father’s trading business. However, the senator’s unexpected death shakes up Thomas’s assumptions. In his will, the senator decreed that the family’s trading firm be liquidated. Although the proceeds will go to Julia, she can’t make financial decisions without consulting pre-appointed male guardians. Hurt, Julia decides to relocate to Munich with her children. She secures a job for Thomas as a clerk. Heinrich goes to Italy to pursue a career in writing.

When Thomas’s artistic ambitions crystallize, he manages a stipend from Julia to join Heinrich. By this time, Thomas realizes that he’s deeply attracted to men. In school, he falls in love with his classmate Armin Martens, but meets rejection. Thomas then decides to keep his attraction to men a secret. Italy inspires Thomas’s first novel, Buddenbrooks (1901), which is based on the Manns’ rise and downfall. Buddenbrooks is an instant hit in Germany, bringing Thomas both fame and wealth. Back in Munich, Thomas meets Katia Pringsheim, the only daughter of a rich, cultured family. He proposes marriage to Katia, and she accepts.

Though Thomas’s attraction to men continues, he and Katia have a close, successful marriage. Katia accepts Thomas’s sexuality as long as it doesn’t destabilize their domestic life. Soon, the Manns have six children: Klaus, Erika, Michael, Golo, Monika, and Elisabeth. Thomas’s sister, Carla, a stage actress, dies by suicide after a period of emotional turbulence. Heinrich is particularly devastated by her death. Thomas and Katia join Heinrich for a trip around Italy to cheer him up.

The trip inspires Thomas’s next great work, Death in Venice (1912). The book’s plot is a veiled reference to Thomas’s attraction to a young man. While Thomas fears that the book’s publication may raise questions about his sexuality, critics interpret the relationship between the older man and the boy as a metaphor for the link between beauty and death. Meanwhile, Katia is sent to Davos to be treated for tuberculosis. While visiting her there, Thomas develops the plot for The Magic Mountain, based on the treatment facility. Thomas is halfway through the novel when rumblings of war begin in Germany. At this point, Thomas’s political views are nationalistic. He believes that the war is a necessary evil to protect the liberal, exalted spirit of Germany from its foes. However, neither Katia nor Heinrich shares Thomas’s views. Heinrich, a left-leaning socialist, publicly denounces Germany’s military campaign. The brothers’ opposing political leanings drive them apart.

World War I ends in Germany’s bitter defeat, ushering in a period of political unrest. In 1924, The Magic Mountain is published to great acclaim, leading to a Nobel Prize for Thomas in 1929. Thomas’s political stance changes during this period. In the Nazis’ rise, Thomas sees the dangers of believing in the monolithic superiority of one’s own country and culture. He distances himself from a nationalistic position, giving speeches on the dangers of following Nazi ideology. When the Reichstag fire occurs, Thomas and Katia are in Switzerland. Given Thomas’s vocal critique of the Nazis, Katia decides that it’s unsafe for them to move back to Germany. The Manns first stay in Lugano, Switzerland, moving to Sanary, France, and then emigrating to the United States in 1938. During this tumultuous period, Erika and Klaus, famous in their own right as free-spirited radicals, campaign against the Nazis. Golo manages to get Thomas’s funds and diaries out of Munich. Securing the diaries is a great relief for Thomas as they contain intimate confessions about his sexuality.

Thomas accepts a job as a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey. To get out of Germany, Erika weds the poet W. H. Auden in a marriage of convenience. Agnes Meyer, the wife of Eugene Meyer, the owner of The Washington Post, helps procure visas for the other Mann children. Michael is an accomplished musician and is married to Gret, while Elisabeth plans to wed a much older Italian professor, Giuseppe Borgese. Monika is married to Hungarian art historian Jeno Lanyi. As World War II breaks out and news of Nazi atrocities piles up, Thomas begins giving lectures against Nazi rule in America, quickly becoming the most famous German in exile in the US.

When Eugene Meyer cautions Thomas against demanding that the US enter the war, Thomas feels disenchanted with Washington. He and Katia move to Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, intending to retire there. Erika, now her father’s secretary, joins them. Klaus is in a state of duress, dealing with drug addiction. After he joins the US Army, the family briefly hopes that Klaus will turn around. The war ends, and Klaus is sent to Germany to report on the postwar scenario for the army magazine. Shocked to discover that many in Germany are being acquitted for their support of the Nazis, Klaus grows disillusioned. Thomas, Katia, and Erika are in Sweden for Thomas’s lecture tour when they learn that Klaus has died of an overdose in France. Devastated, Thomas and Katia refuse to attend Klaus’s funeral, earning them the ire of their youngest son, Michael.

Back in Los Angeles, Thomas begins to feel unwelcome in America amid the panic about communism. Although Thomas isn’t a communist, the FBI questions him and Erika several times. Meanwhile, Heinrich, who moved to the Pacific Palisades to be a Hollywood scriptwriter, falls into penury, and Thomas supports him financially. Heinrich plans to move back to Germany, but dies before his departure. Thomas and Katia finally visit Germany, including the Eastern Zone (under Soviet communist command), and the US government hounds them for doing so. They permanently move to Switzerland.

Erika plans a huge celebration for Thomas’s 80th birthday, and all his grandchildren and surviving children attend. Thomas knows that the chronic pain in his legs is a serious symptom, indicating that he’s nearing the end of his life. He’s happy that he recently visited Lübeck, where he recalled his siblings and his mother’s stories about infusing beauty in art.