With his characteristic talent for finding connections between writing
and the stuff of our lives, Peter Turchi ventures into new and even more
surprising territory. In A Muse and a Maze, Turchi draws out the
similarities between writing and puzzle-making and its flip-side,
puzzle-solving. As he teases out how mystery lies at the heart of all
storytelling, he uncovers the magic--the creation of credible
illusion--that writers share with the likes of Houdini and master
magicians. In Turchi's associative narrative, we learn about the history
of puzzles, their obsessive quality, and that Benjamin Franklin was a
devotee of an ancient precursor of sudoku called Magic Squares. Applying
this rich backdrop to the requirements of writing, Turchi reveals as
much about the human psyche as he does about the literary imagination
and the creative process.