Excerpt from The Magician by Colm Toibin, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The next day, his mother and Ida followed their normal routine, without any mention that they had left the senator in bed in his room. When Thomas asked his mother if his father was sick, she reminded him that the senator had had a minor bladder operation some months earlier.

"He is still recovering," his mother said. "Soon he will be running into the water."

What was strange, Thomas thought, was how little he could remember of his father ever swimming or lying on the beach during earlier summer holidays. Instead, he recalled him reading the newspaper in a deck chair on the veranda, his supply of Russian cigarettes on the table beside him, or waiting outside his mother's room as Julia drifted dreamily inside in the time before dinner.

One day as they walked back from the beach, his mother asked him to visit his father in his room, perhaps even read to him should his father ask. When Thomas demurred, letting her know that he wanted to hear the band play, she insisted, saying that his father was expecting him.

In the room, his father was sitting up in bed, with a crisp white sheet around his neck, while the hotel barber shaved him. He nodded to Thomas and indicated that he should sit on the chair nearest the window. Thomas found a book that was open with its pages facing downwards and began to flick through it. It was the sort of book that Heinrich might read, he thought. He hoped his father did not want him to read from this.

He became absorbed in the slow, intricate way the barber was shaving his father, following broad sweeps of the open razor with tiny movements. When the barber had done one half of the face, he stood back to examine his work and then set about cutting away tiny hairs near the nose and on the upper lips with a small scissors. His father stared straight ahead.

Then the barber got to work again, taking off the rest of the lather. When he had finished, he produced a bottle of cologne and, as his father winced, he applied it liberally and then clapped his hands in satisfaction.

"This will put the barbers of Lübeck to shame," he said, taking off the white sheet and folding it. "And people will flock to Travemünde for the best shave."

Thomas's father lay on the bed. His striped pajamas were perfectly ironed. Thomas saw that his father's toenails were cut with care, except for the little toe on the left foot where the nail seemed to have curled around the toe. He wished he had scissors so that he could try to cut it properly. And then he realized what an absurd idea this was. His father would hardly let him cut his toenails.

He was still holding the book. If he did not put it aside quickly, his father might see it and call on him to read from it, or he might ask him something about it.

His father soon closed his eyes and appeared to be asleep, but presently he opened them again and gazed blankly at the wall opposite. Thomas wondered if this would be an opportune moment to ask his father about ships, which ones were due in port and which were due to depart. And maybe, if his father became loquacious, inquire about fluctuations in the price of grain. Or mention Prussia so that his father could complain about the unpleasant manners and uncouth eating habits of Prussian officials, even men who claimed to come from good families.

He glanced at his father again and saw that he was fast asleep. Within a short time, he was snoring. Thomas thought that he might now put the book on the bedside table. He stood up and went closer to the bed. The shaving had made his father's face look pale as well as smooth.

He wasn't sure how long he was expected to stay. He wished someone from the hotel would come with fresh water or fresh towels, but he supposed all of that was already in place. He did not expect his mother to come. He knew that she had sent him to the room so that she could relax in the hotel gardens or go back to the beach with Ida and his sisters or with Viktor and the maid. If he set foot outside this room, he believed, his mother would surely hear about it.

Excerpted from The Magician by Colm Toibin. Copyright © 2021 by Colm Toibin. Excerpted by permission of Scribner. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.