It is not only Washuta’s sanity, but also our own, that is at stake.
As the narrator casts spells to expel the evil that has manifested in her life and attract love without conditions, we await for results with bated breath. Mysticism, astrology, and witchcraft become veils through which we process her story, as Washuta develops the ghosts that will come to haunt us the deeper we follow her into her journey. We follow Washuta’s gaze through Act I, her quest to find the root cause and meaning of the attacks she’s had to endure. Washuta tells us from the start that, “the writing should teach the reader how to read it.” This, a rule reminiscent of the way in which we analyze others, or decipher magical illusions.Ī magician’s best tool is distraction, a trick that Washuta manifests by drawing our attention to pop culture references and serendipitous life moments, while still obstructing from view the vast terrain on which these moments are planted. By dismantling traditional ideas of chronology and plot, White Magic challenges us to rethink narrative, place, meaning, and inheritance. Washuta divides the book into three acts, each given its own tarot reading, each delving into a different angle of the relationship -before, during, and after. Part exploration of inherited trauma, part feat of universal understanding, White Magic follows Washuta through the life and end of an important romantic relationship, which she uses to give structure to her odyssey. Something I found myself remembering in reading Elissa Washuta’s White Magic. “If you want to spot the trick in a magic trick, read the movements and do not follow the magician’s gaze,” my father used to remind me as he stealthily pulled a quarter out of my young ear. “A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.” – Carl Sagan
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