Wicked,Son of a Witch,A Lion Among Men, &Out of OzWickedis established not only as a commentary on our time but as a novel to revisit for years to come.Wickedrelishes the inspired inventions of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel,The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, while playing sleight of hand with our collective memories of the 1939 MGM film starring Margaret Hamilton (& Judy Garland). In this fast-paced, fantastically real, & supremely entertaining novel,Maguirehas populated the largely unknown world of Oz with the power of his own imagination.Years before Dorothy & her dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin—no easy burden in a land as mean & poor as Oz, where superstition & magic are not strong enough to explain or overcome the natural disasters of flood & famine. Still, Elphaba is smart, & by the time she enters Shiz University, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz’s most promising young citizens.But Elphaba’s Oz is no utopia. The Wizard’s secret police are everywhere. Animals—those creatures with voices, souls, & minds—are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green & wild & misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals—even if it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance. Ever wiser in guilt & sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas.Recognized as an iconoclastic tour de force on its initial publication, the novel has inspired the blockbuster musical of the same name—one of the longest-running plays in Broadway history. Popular, indeed. But while the novel’s distant cousins hail from the traditions of magical realism, mythopoeic fantasy, & sprawling 19th-century sagas of moral urgency,Maguire’sWickedis as unique as its green-skinned witch.