THE MAGIC CIRCLE

In this contemporary thriller by an acclaimed Columbia professor, three young female academics design daring, boundary-pushing games — until one of them goes too far. This is SEX AND THE CITY for intellectuals, an original, riveting story of three women in their thirties who share a passion for gaming: live-action role-playing games on a grand scale. Together they become involved in a game that changes their lives forever.

The setting is Manhattan’s Morningside Heights. Lucy and Ruth are roommates and Anna, a visiting scholar from Sweden, is their neighbor.

Lucy, a poet, teaches at Columbia and often finds herself socially ill at ease. Ruth is on a fellowship, working on a game project. She is serious, scholarly, quick to take offense, and has an eating disorder. Anna is working on the theory of games. She is extremely intelligent and well-spoken, but inspires feelings of jealousy in Ruth with her excessive self-confidence.

The novel deals with relationships, sex, food, bodies, fashion, and aging – but these women are also intellectuals. They have read Euripides and Foucault, and they play "The Game of Life" - not as a juvenile pastime but as a post-college intellectual exercise.

When Anna’s brother Anders arrives – charismatic and secretive, just like his sister – it’s not long before he and Ruth start dating. He wants in on their gaming, too, and initiates a live-action roleplaying game (LARP) based on Euripides’ The Bacchae, a nightly reenactment in the parks and secret spaces of Morningside Heights. He ropes in not only Ruth, Anna, and Lucy, but other thrillseekers, too. Each session begins with excessive drinking and recreational-drugging, then moves into the streets of Morningside Heights or the park. Everyone is cast in a role except for Anders – the Gamemaster. Ruth is cast as Pentheus and Anna as Dionysus, exacerbating the tension between them. Lucy is one of the maenads. Meanwhile Ruth’s and Anna’s relationship is becoming strained. Anders has hinted to Ruth that Anna’s enigmatic exterior hides a past of psychological instability. But Lucy is as suspicious of Anders as she is of Anna – and her deepest suspicions are confirmed when she walks in on Anna and Anders having sex in their apartment. She doesn’t tell Ruth, but that day – before the final night of the game – she confronts Anna. Anna tries to explain. It’s something she has tried to stop, but cannot. Anders is manipulative, she says, dangerous – but he would never hurt her. But on the last night of the game, Anna falls to her death in the dizzying Morningside Park, and Anders also meets his demise. Jenny Davidson received her undergraduate degree in Literature from Harvard-Radcliffe (1993) and Ph.D. in English from Yale (1999). She has taught at Columbia since 2000. Her first novel, HEREDITY, was published by Soft Skull Press in 2003. She is the author of two novels for young adults, THE EXPLOSIONIST (2008), and iNVISIBLE THINGS (2010), both published by HarperTeen. She blogs at Light Reading (http://jennydavidson.blogspot.com).