In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Summary and Reviews of Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

Son of a Witch

by Gregory Maguire
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Sep 1, 2005, 352 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Oct 2006, 356 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Book Summary

Ten years after the publication of Wicked, Maguire returns to the land of Oz to follow the story of Liir, the adolescent boy left hiding in the shadows of the castle when Dorothy killed the witch.

Ten years after the publication of Wicked, beloved novelist Gregory Maguire returns at last to the land of Oz. There he introduces us to Liir, an adolescent boy last seen hiding in the shadows of the castle after Dorothy did in the Witch. Bruised, comatose, and left for dead in a gully, Liir is shattered in spirit as well as in form. But he is tended at the Cloister of Saint Glinda by the silent novice called Candle, who wills him back to life with her musical gifts.

What dark force left Liir in this condition? Is he really Elphaba's son? He has her broom and her cape -- but what of her powers? Can he find his supposed half-sister, Nor, last seen in the forbidding prison, Southstairs? Can he fulfill the last wishes of a dying princess? In an Oz that, since the Wizard's departure, is under new and dangerous management, can Liir keep his head down long enough to grow up?

For the countless fans who have been dazzled and entranced by Maguire's Oz, Son of a Witch is the rich reward they have awaited so long.

Chapter 1
The House of Saint Glinda


SO THE TALK OF RANDOM BRUTALITY wasn't just talk. At noontime they discovered the bodies of three young women, out on some mission of conversion that appeared to have gone awry. The novice maunts had been strangled by their ropes of holy beads, and their faces removed.

Her nerve being shaken at last, Oatsie Manglehand now caved in to the demands of her paying customers. She told the team drivers they'd pause only long enough to dig some shallow graves while the horses slaked their thirst. Then the caravan would press on across the scrubby flats known, for the failed farmsteads abandoned here and there, as the Disappointments.

Moving by night, at least they wouldn't make a sitting target, though they might as easily wander into trouble as sidestep it. Still, Oatsie's party was antsy. Hunker down all night and wait for horse hoofs, spears? Too hard on everyone. Oatsie consoled herself: If the caravan kept moving, she ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

People
Maguire's captivating, fully imagined world of horror and wonder illuminates the links between good and evil, retribution and forgiveness.

The New York Times Book Review - Sophie Harrison
Maguire clearly feels most comfortable when inventing freehand, and most of his novel is set after the original Oz story ends. Dorothy's presence in the text causes difficulties. She belongs too frankly in someone else's fairy tale; her arrival strains Maguire's own confident production in an unhappy way...Once he's freed himself from Baum's tenacious apron strings, Maguire begins to enjoy himself, and the story picks up.

The Washington Post - Katherine A. Powers
Though Wicked was not simply a reverse image of Baum's book or the famous movie, it depended on their depictions of Oz as a foil for its own maverick reshaping of the narrative. Those for whom potty humor is the acme of wit and foul decay is horror sublime will be happy to know that Son of a Witch is as well-supplied with those articles as the earlier book was. What it has lost, however, is the shaping vigor gained by pushing against a well-known story.

Booklist - Paula Luedtke
This is no lightweight fairytale--entertaining, to be sure, but also complex and multilayered in plot and meaning, thought-provoking, and unforgettable.

Library Journal - Starr E. Smith
A tale that adroitly mixes drama, humor, and political satire into a well-knit examination of good and evil-and leaves several doors open for future journeys over the rainbow into this cleverly constructed dystopia.

Publishers Weekly
Tucked into Maguire's enchanting fable are carefully calibrated object lessons in forgiveness, retribution, love, loss and the art of moving on despite tragic circumstances. Ten years after Wicked (which is still on Broadway), fans will once again be clicking their heels with wonderment.

Kirkus Reviews
The book works too hard to dazzle us; it's considerably more cluttered and strained than Wicked.....but few readers will fail to stay its magical course. Once again, the myth of Oz proves its enduring power.

Reader Reviews

Janey

Worth a read if you've read Wicked
I felt compelled to finish this book having enjoyed Wicked so much. Unfortunately the author seems more intent on getting across to the reader a lot of underlining meaning, emotion and politics which will go over the average readers head (as it did ...   Read More
Kimberlee

ehhhh
I enjoyed the book at first because it picked up exactly where it left off, but as I read on I started to become disappointed. I noticed that the pages were getting fewer and there wasn't much that was resolved. I was completely confused at the end ...   Read More
Toni

Did I just waste several days of my life?
Yes, I sure did. I had read Wicked and thought it was a fun, quick, interesting and original book to read. Son of a Witch on the other hand fell flat. I was expecting some climatic plot revelations but got nothing. There were no interesting story ...   Read More
Travis

What on earth happened?
I have to confess, I didn't love Wicked but I at least thought it was clever. Son of a Witch however, wow - just useless. It was like Maguire didn't even know what it was about. There were several throw away conflicts that were not the least bit ...   Read More

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Gregory Maguire is the author of a number of books including Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, Mirror Mirror, and Wicked, the basis for the Tony Award–winning Broadway musical; and  Leaping Beauty, a book of short stories for children. He has lectured on art and culture at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the DeCordova Museum as well as at conferences around the world. An occasional reviewer for the "New York Times Book Review" he lives ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Son of a Witch, try these:

  • Finding Dorothy jacket

    Finding Dorothy

    by Elizabeth Letts

    Published 2019

    About this book

    More by this author

    This richly imagined novel tells the story behind The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the book that inspired the iconic film, through the eyes of author L. Frank Baum's intrepid wife, Maud.

  • The Big Over Easy jacket

    The Big Over Easy

    by Jasper Fforde

    Published 2006

    About this book

    More by this author

    It's Easter in Reading—a bad time for eggs. Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity, Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, is found shattered to death. Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary are on the case and before long find themselves grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, beanstalks, titans ...

We have 4 read-alikes for Son of a Witch, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Gregory Maguire
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...
  • Book Jacket
    The MANIAC
    by Benjamin Labatut
    The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut is an ambitious work that falls squarely into the category of fiction...
  • Book Jacket: Blood Test
    Blood Test
    by Charles Baxter
    Brock Hobson is a loving single father, a Sunday School teacher, and an upstanding and honest ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Libby Lost and Found
    by Stephanie Booth

    Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don't know who they are without the books they love.

Who Said...

The silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..