REVIEW: ''The Disapparation of James'' by Anne Ursu
Reviewed Jan 12, 2003 by Matt J. Konrad, Special to the Star Tribune

What if a magician made someone disappear and had no idea how to bring him back?

That's the fiendishly clever premise behind Anne Ursu's second novel, "The Disapparation of James," and she uses it to launch a wry, haunting meditation on love, loss and family ties.

As the book opens, an abnormally quiet and reserved 5-year-old comes charmingly out of his shell as an audience volunteer for a circus magician. James Woodrow's behavior delights the rest of his family: doctor Hannah, house-husband Justin, and 7-year-old Greta, as voluble as her brother is shy. Their joy is short-lived, though. For his grand finale, the magician makes James disappear, and the Woodrow family's comfortable existence vanishes right along with him.

As in her debut novel, "Spilling Clarence," Ursu's major strength here is her devastatingly accurate eye for detail. The world of her novels is just a few degrees askew from the one we live in, but Ursu, like the best practitioners of magical realism, gives her fantastic situations a palpable physicality. Take her poetic trip to the circus:

"Ten bodies come tumbling onstage, four fly in on trapezes, another storms in on stilts playing the violin, three jump rope, two ride a tandem bike, and a shaggy little puppy jumps up and down in the center of it all . . . the music bounces, bodies flit, and a rubbery man in a tailcoat, clown nose, top hat, and funny pants enters the fracas and tries desperately to command attention."

In quieter moments, Ursu keeps the book rolling, and shows her growth as a writer, by turning the same sharp wit and keen eye to the people affected by the disappearance of James. Her characters are as recognizably human and frail as anyone's friends and neighbors. Most of the book traces their reactions to the central crisis, and Ursu makes even the most unexpected ones -- gentle Justin's anger, rational Hannah's embrace of dreams -- fit with their carefully drawn personalities and the intense emotion of the situation.

The characters that truly stand out are young Greta, "the product of years of planning" who "emerged from the womb like a shot," and Tom, the policeman assigned to stay with the Woodrows for the week or so after the disappearance.

Greta, unlike the adults in the novel, doesn't try to explain the absence of her beloved brother. Instead, her endlessly inventive 7-year-old's brain imagines his adventures and tries to put his life on paper. In doing so, she proves herself perhaps the most well-adjusted Woodrow -- and becomes one of the most intriguing and fully realized children in fiction in some time (and yes, that includes Donna Tartt's "Little Friend").

Greta quickly befriends Tom, a skilled, out-of-his-element cop who -- as Ursu reveals in one of her most ingenious moments -- spent his own childhood working very seriously to become a superhero. Greta and Tom's friendship also provides the novel's emotional high point. Unfortunately, it comes a little too early, and the somewhat tacked-on denouement makes some of the novel's potential emotional impact do a disappearing act of its own.

Despite this structural flaw, however, "The Disapparation of James" is both light and powerful, a keenly observed portrait of the joys and terrors of familial love.

-- Matt J. Konrad reviews for the Ruminator Review and the Star Tribune. He lives in Minneapolis.