Norman Saylor and his beautiful young wife Tansy are residents of a small academic township in America, in whose college Norman is a professor. Leiber's plots are always unique and this short novel is no exception. He is that rare thing, a literary fantasy writer who is exciting as well. The narrative moves on at such a fast clip that you will miss the beauty of the language and the craft of the writer unless you purposefully take time to savour it: like the beauty of the countryside is wasted on an impatient traveller seated in a fast train. Norman casts a spell at the behest of an endangered Tansy, and he completes it on time-well, almost on time, and then.įritz Leiber is an absolute pleasure to read. It is then that the book becomes even more interesting. It is set in a small American college filled with pseudo-gothic architecture (keep your eye on those gargoyles-they may be important later!) and where the petty politics are so nasty they remind me of an old joke: 'Why are academic politics so vicious?' 'Because the stakes are so small.'įor the first half of the book, the premise pretty much writes itself as we observe the harrying of nice young sociology prof Norman Saylor and his wife Tansy-poor, bare forked animals deprived of the comforts of witchcraft.

Many novels and films-and an infinity of TV dramas and sitcoms-have used Leiber's idea, but few of them have produced a book as absorbing and well plotted as this one. What if all the women are witches and keep their craft secret from their husbands? What if their husbands' success in the workplace-their good performance reviews, their promotions, their smallest political victories-are due to their spouses' spells and circles of protection? And what would happen if one of the men found out, and persuaded his wife to renounce magic?

The premise of this book must have seemed remarkably clever-and unusual-when it appeared in 1943.

Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber