- a re-interpreted Wizard of Oz book.
"Hardly more than a kitten . . . I had thought to call it Prrr,
but it shivers more often than it purrs, so I call it Brrr
instead."
—From Wicked
Since Wicked was first published in 1995, millions of readers
have discovered Gregory Maguire's fantastically encyclopedic Oz,
a world filled with characters both familiar and new, darkly
conceived and daringly reimagined. In the much-anticipated third
volume of the Wicked Years, we return to Oz, seen now through the
eyes of the Cowardly Lion—the once tiny cub defended by Elphaba
in Wicked.
While civil war looms in Oz, a tetchy oracle named Yackle
prepares for death. Before her final hour, an enigmatic figure
known as Brrr—the Cowardly Lion—arrives searching for information
about Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked Witch of the West. As payment,
Yackle, who hovered on the sidelines of Elphaba's life, demands
some answers of her own.
Brrr surrenders his story to the ailing maunt: Abandoned as a
cub, his earliest memories are gluey hazes, and his path from
infancy in the Great Gillikin Forest is no Yellow Brick Road.
Seeking to redress an early mistake, he trudges through a swamp
of ghosts, becomes implicated in a massacre of trolls, and falls
in love with a forbidding Cat princess. In the wake of laws that
oppress talking Animals, he avoids a jail sentence by agreeing to
serve as a lackey to the war-mongering Emperor of Oz.
A Lion Among Men chronicles a battle of wits hastened by the
Emerald City's approaching armies. What does the Lion know of the
whereabouts of the Witch's boy, Liir? What can Yackle reveal
about the auguries of the Clock of the Time Dragon? And what of
the Grimmerie, the magic book that vanished as quickly as
Elphaba? Is destiny ever arbitrary? Can those tarnished by infamy
escape their sobriquets—cowardly, wicked, brainless, criminally
earnest—to cl their own histories, to live honorably within
their own skins before they're skinned alive?
At once a portrait of a would-be survivor and a panoramic
glimpse of a world gone shrill with war fever, Gregory Maguire's
new novel is written with the sympathy and power that have made
his books contemporary classics.
About the Author
Gregory Maguire is the bestselling author of Confessions of an
Ugly Stepsister, Lost, Mirror Mirror, and the Wicked Years
series, which includes Wicked, Son of a Witch, and A Lion Among
Men. Wicked, now a beloved classic, is the basis for the Tony
Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name. Maguire has
lectured on art, literature, and culture both at home and abroad.
He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
A Letter from Gregory Maguire
Dear friends,
Here it is: volume three in my series coming to be known as The
Wicked Years. I have had such warm reader response to Wicked and
Son of a Witch, both initially and in the years since, that the
thought of adding to the series made me feel--well, cowardly. I
resisted for a while. But courage comes to those who wait,
sometimes: so here is volume three.
A Lion Among Men follows the peripatetic career of the Cowardly
Lion. First seen in Wicked as a lion cub culled from his pride
for the purpose of laboratory experimentation, the Lion (known as
Brrr) makes his name in that little Matter of Dorothy about which
all of Oz is still talking. But one doesn’t necessarily become
lion-hearted by going after public approval, by racking up those
medals and titles and golden statuettes at award ceremonies.
Tarnished with scandal of every stripe, Brrr is loathed by the
Animals who believe he betrayed them in helping Dorothy do in the
Witch. He fares no better trying to live as a lion among men.
When civil war breaks out in Oz, Brrr is caught in the line of
fire as he interviews the mysterious old oracle, Yackle, about
the sources of Elphaba’s power. He must choose how much approval
he can live without. A bit player all his life, he may yet be the
linchpin on which the prosecution of the war rests.
When I travel abroad (and the continuing success of the musical
Wicked has brought me to countries where it is now playing), I am
sometimes met with bemusement about the origins of the
material--a children’s book made famous by a musical film for
children!--how can this serve as a proper metaphor for a
meditation about predestination and free will, about political
rtunism and personal valor?
Maybe, I say, you have to be an American to see that a
vaudeville comedian in baggy lion-pajamas, as Burt Lahr seemed to
me, has just as much right to inspire a story about the education
of a hero as any Siegfried or Lancelot or Joan of Arc.
And if they reply, You have some nerve!I answer Thank you. I
hope so.
And I do thank you for your lion-hearted confidence in these
wicked novels.
-- Gregory
