Title: The Projected Girl
Author: Lavie Tidhar
In: Naked City (Ellen Datlow)
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Magic, Magical realism, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 31st October 2019
Pace: Slow
Format: Short story
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Year: 2011
5th sentence, 74th page: And someone told on her.
What happens when a magicians assistant truly disappears? Where did she go? Can a young Jewish boy finally solve the mystery?
This was a bit of a detective story. Not overtly, but the journey to find out what happened to the girl and whether the magician was guilty or not. Why did the girl disappear? It was a series of small questions that you wanted to know the answer to, but didn’t wrap you up in its power like many of the other detective series I’ve read do.
This was a great tying together of the past and the present. I’m noticing that I’m really enjoying stories which do this in a seamless way, and The Projected Girl actually moves to the top of the list for this. There is a young boy who, in reading a magician’s diary finds out that they’re connected to his family. And it could somehow answer some of the questions he just didn’t know to ask.
The Projected Girl explores Jewish culture and faith, their ties to family. It’s not a faith that I read much about, unless it has to do with the holocaust, so it was a lot of fun to do so. Especially late at night when I was a little bit overwhelmed by all the sadness in the world.
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